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Tanna will screen at Plaza Frontenac Cinema (Lindbergh Blvd. and Clayton Rd, Frontenac, Mo 63131) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Showings are Saturday, November 4th, at 12:05pm (purchase tickets Here) and Friday, November 10th, at 4:40pm (purchase tickets Here).

Tanna is a gripping tale of adventure and star-crossed love on a beautiful Pacific island. Based on a true story of the Yakel people and performed by them, this stirring, moving drama offers intriguing insights into the culture and history of these island people through a story of two people, a tale that has a little of both James Fenimore Cooper and Shakespeare.

Beautifully shot by co-director Bentley Dean, the script was written by co-director , Martin Butler and John Collee with the help of the Yakel. Visually stunning, Tanna immerses us in a lovely green natural setting, a Pacific Island paradise where the happy,...

There have been countless renditions of Romeo and Juliet during the past five hundred or so years and yet its themes still haven’t grown stale. Bentley Dean and Martin Butler‘s Tanna isn’t an official retelling considering its tale is based on a real-life romance, but it’s nearly impossible not to think about the Shakespearian classic while watching. The events onscreen occurred in 1987 in the midst of civil unrest between two tribes of the Kastom roads. With colonialists and Christians arriving at their Vanuatuan island to convert natives to their ways, a few inhabitants stayed devoted to the ancient traditions. Despite their common lifestyle, however, tensions remained via a struggle for land. And like European wars centuries ago, the surest way to stop the bloodshed was marriage.

Before Dean and Butler reveal this hopeful alliance, though, we must become acquainted with the Yakel people. The actors are...

By Jose Solís.

At first glance Tanna might seem like another take on the Romeo and Juliet story, as we see two star-crossed lovers, living in the title South Pacific island, fight their way in a society that doesn’t understand their love. But upon giving it a closer look, the film reveals itself to be a fascinating anthropological study about the way in which ancient civilizations have been able to maintain their traditions for centuries, as the colonizers around them always seem to be on the verge of self-destruction. Watching the idyllic living of the Ni-Vanuatu people in the film makes one wish our governments also found ways to listen to everyone in the community. But even when it’s clear that not everything in the island is good, after all they’re living in a conservative patriarchal society, directors Bentley Dean and Martin Butler are able to remove all romanticism,...