Patutiki: The Guardians of the Marquesan Tattoo
Directed by Heretu Tetahiotupa and Christophe Cordier (French Polynesia, 2019)
Free, booking essential
This film is unclassified
Duration: 90 minutes including post-screening Q&A
Marquesan language with English and French subtitles
Director, Heretu Tetahiotupa, will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A after the screening.
This documentary takes us to the middle of the Pacific in the archipelago of the Marquesas. Over the centuries, the practice of tattooing has developed into a unique vocabulary and art that has its roots in Marquesan culture and stories, a way of seeing the world and their place in it that encapsulates the memories and history of these islands.
With tattoo declared illegal by colonisers, church and state in the early 1900s, the last of the ‘black-skinned’ Marquesan elders have found clever ways to guard their history. The filmmakers delve into how Marquesan people are rediscovering and celebrating this artform.
The first film to be directed, written, and produced by a native Marquesan, Patutiki is presented in partnership with the Festival International du Film Documentare Oceanien (FIFO), Tahiti's prestigious International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival, where the film won the Audience Prize in 2019.
Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao is on at the National Gallery from 29 Jun – 7 Oct 2024.
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about the filmmaker
Heretu Tetahiotupa profile photo Image provided by Heretu Tetahiotupa
Heretu Tetahiotupa
Raised in the midst of a Marquesan cultural renaissance, surrounded by rediscovered music, dance, sculpting, tapa, and tattoo, Heretu made his first short film in 2012, Make the Kitchen Groove, which won prizes for Best Screenplay, Best Film and the Jury Prize at Tahiti’s Vini Film Festival. In 2015, he co-directed the short film Hakamanu (Bird Dance), revealing the grace and power of this ancient Marquesan dance of courtship.
A shared passion for world music and Marquesan culture brought Heretu Tetahiotupa, a native Marquesan, and Christophe Cordier, a Frenchman, together in Taiohae, Nuku Hiva.
Director’s statement:
“People’s attraction to Marquesan tattoo is mostly aesthetic, but there’s much more to patutiki than its distinctive designs. We wanted people to become aware of the spiritual dimension and how each motif was a key to understanding how the ancients perceived the world. People are drawn to these symbols without knowing why. The Marquesans see patutiki as a magical manifestation of their predecessors’ past. For more than a thousand years, master tattoo artists and shamans connected to the spirit of our ancestors, re-created rituals transferring mana every time they practiced their art.”
