Leila Staffler
BEGINNING on Feb. 7, Leila Staffler will host free screenings on all three main islands for her film “Exploring Latte in the Marianas: Aguiguan, Cave Art, and the Last Chamorro Stand.”
“Come on a journey to the fortress of Aguiguan island where the Chamorros from Tinian and Aguiguan stood up to the Spanish during the ‘Reduccion’ in 1698,” according to the film synopsis Staffler provided.
The film will take audiences through Aguiguan’s limestone forests to “see never before documented rock art and the largest latte site on the island.”
The film will premiere at the Tinian Youth Center on Feb. 7 at 5:30 p.m.
On Feb. 8 at 5 p.m. at American Memorial Park’s indoor theater on Saipan, Staffler will host another screening of the film.
It will be showcased on Rota on Feb. 9 at the Children’s Park in Sinapalo and on Feb. 10 at the Songsong Roundhouse. The screening starts at 5:30 p.m. on both days.
Staffler, who is also the CNMI Labor secretary, said the documentary is the third film in a series she began five years ago. All three films were made with grants from the Northern Marianas Humanities Council. Staffler said Dr. Andrea Jalandoni from Griffith University in Australia will be the special guest at the screenings.
“The first one was done in 2020 about Pagan,” she said. “It is more of an ASMR video with not much voice-over. But it does tell the story about our latte and the threat of militarization. The second was done two years later, inspired by the first, and is called ‘Exploring Latte in the Marianas” Åmot Giya Alamågan.’ We took a cultural expert on medicinal healing plants, Uncle Donald Mendiola, to Alamågan on a search for rare plants hard to find in the Northern Islands.”
To view both documentaries, go to www.youtube.com/@exploringlatteinthemarianas/.
Staffler said her intended audience is “anyone interested in the culture and history of the Marianas.”
“I take people to places in our island chain they may never see but need to know exist. People don’t often realize that our ancient ancestors lived on every island in our chain,” she said. “They were masters of the sea and protectors of the land. They were the first to populate the Pacific blue continent and were here long before the Western world ‘discovered’ us. To go back to our roots, we must know about our history and learn about our land — from Uracas to Guam. I make these films for all ages and especially our diaspora far from home.”
