LEA TUPU'ANGA | MOTHER TONGUE
2024 · 17m · New Zealand
Directed by Vea Mafile'o
Genres: drama
Tones: provocative, tender, tense
A young speech therapist disconnected from her Tongan heritage lies about her language skills to get a job; out of her depth, she must find a way to communicate or risk her patient's life.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Speech therapist lies about her Tongan language skills, professional expertise becomes the arena of cultural estrangement — that's a genuinely sharp premise, with Jason Momoa and Frankie Adams as executive producers, which is either a good sign or a Marvel-cinematic-universe smell. The premise wins.
Mafile'o weaponizing speech-therapy expertise as the very arena of cultural estrangement — language loss made simultaneously personal, ethical, and bodily dangerous — is a genuinely original structural move. With Jason Momoa and Frankie Adams as EPs, the platform meets the material.
16:42, Sundance Shorts channel, Jason Momoa & Frankie Adams executive producing, Vea Mafile'o directing Luciane Buchanan's script — weaponizing speech therapy as the arena of the protagonist's cultural estrangement is a structural masterstroke. Tongan diaspora cinema at this production scale is rare and worth full attention.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2026