By Ben Wheeler
There has been palpable excitement on the Fiji filmmaking scene over the past few years, and it reaches a crescendo this weekend as Andrew John Fakaua Ponton’s locally produced BATI opens across the country’s cinemas.
That the film exists at all is a testament to patience and perseverance.
It was shot in 2019 with a small, dedicated cast and a crew of six, and honed over the years that followed until it was ready to be unleashed on a largely unsuspecting public.
The story draws striking parallels with the production. It follows Sam (James Rabuatoka), a pensive and humble security guard who has moved to Suva his wife Rachel (Jedidiah Tuinasavusavu) from the highlands of Namosi, with dreams of making it as a prize-winning boxer. Their plans for a modern urban existence are interrupted, however, by the inequities of the modern world.
Serendipitously, Sam is able to enter the big money Bati Boxing Tournament where he finds himself pitched against opponents who range from cocksure young champions (Nadeem Shekh and Romeo Naura) to dark horse Josaia (Naibuka Qarau), returning from retirement, who communicates more profundity with his eyes than these young whippersnappers ever could with their verbal posturing.
Like any boxing film worth its salt, the battles are not confined to the ring, and Fakaua Ponton explores both worlds with a deft hand. The cinematography from Damien Light captures unexpected moments of beauty in the cityscapes of Suva and the dirty sweaty showdowns, and these in turn are juxtaposed with the tranquility of village life in Namosi. Such contrasts are further emphasised by subtle adjustments in performance, colouring and perhaps most significantly, language.
In its succinct 83-minute runtime the film offers a complex cross-section of Fijian life, a welcome relief from the paradisiacal stereotypes that abound in the popular imagination. The difficulties that come with modernisation and urban drift are explored through inequality, low wages and unemployment – roads that lead so many into poverty – with subtle allusions to gender-based violence, and more playful east-west regional rivalries.
But the film soars when it comes to its celebrations of the Fiji Islands: the music of Inside Out, the stunning landscapes – both rural and urban – the drama that exists in the minutiae of daily life, the simple pleasures that come from working the land, and the moments of comedy that sent waves of laughter rolling through the theatre last night, all guided and enhanced perfectly by a sublime score from first time feature film composer Kevin Croner.
Most impressively, something is bubbling beneath the story, challenging narrative tropes and deconstructing ideas around conflict and spectacle, while simultaneously sounding a conch call to other Pacific filmmakers to tell their own authentic stories that will capture the hearts of the public as BATI looks set to.
The cinematic parallels are equally wide-ranging from the dreamy family dramas of Yasujirō Ozu to Hollywood’s blockbusting Rocky franchise (“If he dies… he dies!”). Fakaua Ponton himself has mentioned a particular affinity with the great Samoan filmmaker Tusi Tamasese (The Orator, One Thousand Ropes). In BATI he channels that director’s masterful articulation of Faʻa Sāmoa to create a unique meditation on Fijian Bula Vakavanua.
In front of the camera, the performances are uniformly excellent, and an incredible supporting cast of familiar local talent from Asesela Ravuvu, Sadrishan Velaidan, Romulo Kakaivalu, Vika Ramara, Shristi Sweta Singh and Ateca Ravuvu, combine with a time-capsule glimpse at pre-COVID Suva – with sites now missing from the city in 2025 – for a feeling of familiarity absent from our local cinema’s usual fare.
The film also celebrates the resilience of local institutions like Winston Hill’s Boxfit, with the professional boxer also serving as consultant on the film (the eagle-eyed viewer can also spot his trainer Mike Ak’s famous white Twins gloves getting their own cameo!).
BATI is entirely unlike anything else you will see in the cinemas this year, beating a lali for other local filmmakers to follow: put your dreams, your visions, your stories, and more Fijian faces up on the big screen.
It is time.
