Easter Island, known worldwide for its famous moai or giant heads, is also the farthest inhabited place in the Pacific, with about 4000 people living in it. A mythic place of deeply rooted traditions because of centuries of geographical isolation, that was nevertheless shaken by a wave of modernity when Hollywood decided to shoot there in 1994 the blockbuster Rapa Nui. Paco Toledo and José Domingo Rivera use this specific case to create an incredibly original and entertaining approach to a complex modern conflict: the difficult balance between the preservation of one’s own culture and identity and the passing of time and the arrival of social and economic progress.
