In a press briefing yesterday, KSPN 2 News Director for the Flame Tree Network and project director Bob Coldeen said the premiere screening of the documentary “Mothers of Saipan: Changing with the Times” will be held at American Memorial Park theatre at 7 p.m. tomorrow.
“This is an honest, sincere oral history which started from the 1940s to the present,” Coldeen said.
Sponsored by a grant from the NMI Council of Humanities, Coldeen said the 52-minute film took five months to complete.
“We are very excited about this project and would like to invite the community to come for the premier screening tomorrow. Admission is free,” Coldeen said.
He said the film, which has three chapters, is told from a mother’s perspective on the main themes of home, health and heritage as they relate to Chamorro and Carolinian cultures.
Coldeen said KSPN reporter/anchor Lanie Walker interviewed 13 mothers representing both Chamorro and Carolinian cultures and covering each generation since World War II.
Walker said the documentary turned out to be an eye opener to some untold aspects of motherhood on the island.
“Before our interviews with the different mothers, we had no preconceived notion of what to expect. What we discovered was far more rewarding,” Walker said.
She noted that there are more similarities than differences in mothers from different generations from both cultures.
Chailang Palacios who served as one of the cultural consultants yesterday said the documentary film shows the virtue of respect has remained valued throughout the generations.
Palacios said they discovered that the mothers of the different generations still preserve their beliefs in several aspects of home, heritage, and health.
She said one example of this is the mothers’ belief in traditional healing over the scientific and modern-day healing.
“If a family member gets sick and he or she is not healed at the hospital, we learned that mothers will turn to traditional healing,” she said.
Working with Palacios as cultural consultant was Malua Peters. The topics covered under the three chapters of the film include the size of family, child rearing, local medicine, diet, language, nannies, education and other issues that concern mothers.
Coldeen said they will be giving out 30 copies of the DVD to the Humanities Council for the schools and libraries.
