Patu tattoo culture

Patu tattoo culture

Patu Mamatui is a young Polynesian tattoo artist who wins a maximum of international awards. Discovery of his life in his neighborhood of Tahiti.

2016 · 26 min · ★ 9.0 · Documentary

The first time Patu joined a tattoo shop was in 2004 with Tavae Norbert. Wanting to deepen his knowledge of Polynesian history and culture, which he did not know at all, he then joined the Tahiti Art Craft Center. At the Center Patu is lucky to have Philippe Aukara as a sculpture teacher. This new guide teaches him a lot about composition and patterns. The legends, the traditional songs, the design of the nasal flutes, the canoes, the instruments, the percussion. The language too. Today Patu has his own salon and makes a living from tattooing. He dances and fully lives what he loves to do. When you love what you do, you can only be smiling and feel good about yourself... For the young people who know him in his neighborhood and who see him evolve today, he is a very good example.

Directed by Jonathan Bougard · Written by Jonathan Bougard

Your Rating

Cast

Patu Mamatui Himself
Viri Taimana Himself

More from Jonathan BougardSee all →

Tatau Tefana

Tatau Tefana · 2015

MovieDocumentary

Chronicle of the first tattoo festival which was held at the end of March and beginning of April 2017 at the town hall of Faa'a in Tahiti. With Moana Heitaa, Pai Aritai, Patu, Tuatini Tamata, Tana Tokoragi, Estelle Anania miss Ink Girl France 2017 godmother of the festival and around fifteen young tattoo artists for whom it was the first festival.

Pitore

MovieDocumentary

Everyone knows Pitore in Moorea. Pitore is a sculptor, farmer, fisherman, canoe builder, fare builder, masseur and tattooist. He also makes medicines based on medicinal plants.

Moussake

Moussake · 2018

Portrait of a silent old man, with a life full of drama. Moussake comes from the remote Tuamotu archipelago in French Polynesia. He makes a living from picking Tahitian tiaras and performing musical events at the Papeete market. The film follows him along the congested roads of the Tahitian capital, then into the cabin where he makes flower crowns and receives visits from his children.

Taverio

Taverio · 2019

MovieDocumentary

Aged 83, Taverio Richmond is doing well. He is very involved in defending the indigenous rights of the Polynesian people. Particularly when it comes to land. He still climbs trees like a real chimpanzee. He is worse than Tarzan, his friend Tapu says of him.

Tatau

MovieDocumentary

This film focuses on the links between Maori tattoo artists from New Zealand (James Webster, Juliee Paama Penguely, Moko de la Terre) and those from French Polynesia (Roonui Anania, Chimé, Laurent Purotu). With interventions by specialists Sébastien Galliot and Michael Koch.

Arrabal the panic explosion

Arrabal the panic explosion · 2023

Arrabal the panic explosion

MovieDocumentary

Celebration of Fernando Arrabal, 90 years old, poet, playwright, member of the transcendent body of satraps of the college of pataphysics and founder of the panic movement with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor. With Alejandra Chulia Jordan, Arrabal specialist. With the contribution of François Naudin. Moderation Wanda Mihuléac. Caroline Corre for bibliophile books.

Danger

MovieDocumentary

Boxer, fisherman, murderer, jailbird, Terii Lenoir does not mince his words. Aged 65, this former boxer still beats up the little thugs who come to hang out a little too close to his cabin, at the foot of a mango tree, on the edge of the Tahiti lagoon.

Tapu

MovieDocumentary

When the name Hikueru is mentioned, all the other surrounding islands shudder with fear. Because in the story, when someone from Hikueru says anything it comes true. In Hikueru speech is sacred. Tapu was born in Hikueru. Until the age of nine, he grew up with his grandfather in Reka Reka. There is no better place in the universe than the Tuamotus, Tapu tells us. Tapu Bonnet descends from the great names of French Polynesia. He can recite his genealogy over several centuries. Forty years ago he was one of the seeds, one of those who renovated and restored this culture which was prohibited: walking on fire, tattooing... Incredible the flowering that there has been since that time of eighties.

Rurutu Vitaria

Rurutu Vitaria · 2018

MovieDocumentary

Discovery of the community of Vitaria, on the island of Rurutu in the Austral archipelago in Polynesia. In Vitaria we are Rurutu Protestants. This church draws on its autochthony to regain control over individuals and their native land. To stay in the symbolism, it should be noted that the geographical point furthest from Jerusalem is located in the Austral archipelago, south of the island of Rapa. The prism of local Christianity will be an opportunity to focus on the lives of the people of Vitaria, to get to know Patia Taputu, a charismatic character who is a farmer, breeder and fisherman. His wife Tiare is a recognized craftswoman. The couple raised their seven children on vanilla, coffee, egg production and making woven hats from white pandanus.

Calicia best dancer

Calicia best dancer · 2018

Calicia best dancer

MovieDocumentary

Tahiti, an island where people dance every night. We rehearse for the Heiva festivities, a dance competition where large troupes compete each July. The film follows a young girl from Raiatea, Calicia Taufa, second prize for best dancer at Heiva i Tahiti 2017, filmed day by day from the first rehearsals to the synod of the Maohi Protestant church in Taravao after the Heiva.

Loulou the former

Loulou the former · 2016

Loulou the former

MovieDocumentary

Louis Lalanne, known as Loulou, entered the world of canoeing quite by chance, through Gilles Maitere. Gilles had a science, an art. He had been introduced to canoeing by old Tahitians. For him the canoe was a way of life, an art and a cult. At first Loulou didn't really understand. The canoeist holds an ancestral oar, the canoe was used to immigrate. At the time when Europeans were still using sextants, Polynesian navigators were reading nature. They navigated by the stars, the positioning of the moon and reading the winds and currents. The chop of the sea and the position of the clouds.

Magic Circus Life Sultan Kosen

Magic Circus Life Sultan Kosen · 2019

Magic Circus Life Sultan Kosen

MovieDocumentary

What is the daily life of Turkish Sultan Kosen, the tallest man in the world, like in Bruno Loyale's Magic Circus of Samoa, for a month on the Apogoti site in New Caledonia? Some accuse the circus of exploiting it, what is it really? Sultan has been making a living performing in the Pacific Islands for years.

Mara V

MovieDocumentary

This film takes the form of an investigation into the life and work of the sculptor Vaiere Mara, born in 1936 in Rurutu, in the Austral Islands (French Polynesia) and died in Arue in 2005. Mara sculpted wood, coral and stone and his production was remarkable and noticed from the 1960s. Many local personalities placed orders with the man whom some considered the first contemporary Polynesian artist. The film traces the director's journey in search of Mara's works, scattered across islands and continents, and the personal story of this exceptional artist. Combining testimonies from those close to him, reconstructions of the founding moments of his career and documentation of the works found, this film appears as an investigation that is at once human, artistic and detective... which allows us to reconstruct the context of Vaiere Mara's creation.

Semetua

Semetua · 2018

MovieDocumentary

Semetua was Sem Manutahi, master of ceremonies and central figure of the "Tipaerui Valley" association. His role in the association was to find legends, and to set up traditional activities or ceremonies, in the upper valley of Tipaerui in the heart of the island of Tahiti. "This valley has a soul, a spirit that we always respect when we come. He said. It is animated by the spirit of the Mamaia. These people that we rarely met, that we feared and respected also, in the days of royalty. Some say they were healers, others say they were seers." Speaker on several occasions for troops at Heiva i Tahiti, master of ceremonies for the Tipaeui Valley association, Semetua has made his voice resonate on numerous occasions, to tell stories, protect a valley or quite simply defend his convictions.

L'étrusque

L'étrusque · 2014

MovieDocumentary

Tiairani, a young Tahitian, sets out to meet the Etruscan, a man with a tattooed face who occupies a roundabout in Punaauia, on the island of Tahiti.

Carolina Virus

Carolina Virus · 2020

A red-haired man walks in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum. He holds a large shell and hides his face with it. The shell is sculpted with a neutral face. The man walks towards the statues which adorn the Tuilleries promenade. A curious dialogue begins.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter