"A true child of the South Seas, never denying her inheritance, she took with eager and so skilful hands all that civilisation brought to her feet and made a way of life of it"
Margaret Mead
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Written about my great great grandmother, Phebe Parkinson.
A CHILD OF OCEANIA
Kalo's story
Kalo’s driving passion is family and culture, particularly those cultures which she and her family have connection with either genetically, historically and through life experience.
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Kalo loves stories and could listen to the stories of her Grandparents, when they were alive, and her Uncles and Aunts all night long. Her storytelling is transcribed visually more than orally, through photography, film and video. She is a collector of stories as well as a documenter.
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It’s important for Kalo to establish her own connection to the land and people she has heard so much about throughout the years and to understand why that connection remains so strong within the family and how it forms a part of who she is.
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She is looking for her place in the family and she is passionate about participating and contributing to the on-going honouring of her family’s story.
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Family dynamics, family stories, family ancestors, cultural identity and connection, the evolution of culture, the challenges of society, local and global: All of this is part of Kalo’s journey and from her journey she hopes to find how she is best suited to this world; how she can best contribute and how she can best grow into her own true potential.
BIO
Creative experience
Kalo is an emerging female filmmaker of Tongan/Australian heritage and is the Founder and Director of Pasifika Film Fest. Over the past 8 years, her primary focus has been in film festival development and promotion as well as small-scale multimedia and video production with a large part of her work focusing on Pacific communities.
Her credentials include a Masters of Media Arts & Production, a BVA Photography with a Photojournalism major, the completion of two AFTRS Open Courses; Research for Television / Feature Documentary Intensive. Examples of her work include a collaboration with PATHE (Pasifika Achievement To Higher Education) at Western Sydney University to produce 18 short biographical videos that highlight interest areas and personal journeys of Pacific people pursuing careers in various vocations, and a relatively successful short film she produced for her graduating Masters project The Tongans: Meet the Parents (2011) with more than 400k views on youtube.
After many years of developing a platform for Pacific people to not only have their films screened in Australia, but also working developing partnerships and workshops that offer opportunities of skills development for Pacific people in the film industry, Kalo is stepping back into writer/director roles to bring to life stories of her own making.