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RAI FILM Festival takes place on 27-30 March 2025. Learn more.

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The Poet’s Salary

Directed by Alexandre Francois, Eric Wittersheim

2008 – 59'

Synopsis

For the first time in many years, on the little island of Motalava in Vanuatu, a new song will be composed in the island’s ancestors’ language, the language of god Quat, and become part of the island’s repertoire. The Poet’s Salary tells of the daily life of ethnographers while doing fieldwork, through a vivid and colourful account of the mutual exchanges between the people of Motalava and ethnolinguist Alexandre Francois and ethnomusicologist Monika Stern .

RAI FILM Festival 2025

The next RAI FILM Festival will take place in person from 27-30 March 2025 at the Watershed Cinema and the Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts in Bristol (UK) and online throughout the month of April 2025.