During Pride Fest 2025, Satiu Studios has presented Across the Pacific – Stories of Queer Resilience. It’s a new work that celebrates queer Pasifika identities and the MVPFAFF++ community.
At the 2011 Asia-Pacific Outgames Human Rights Conference, Phylesha Brown-Acton, the Niuean fakafifine LGBTQ+ rights activist, was the first person to introduce a Pacific specific acronym for communities.
The terms that the acronym are formed from are:
Māhū (Hawai’i and Tahiti)
Vaka sa lewa lewa (Fiji)
Palopa (Papua New Guinea)
Fa’afafine (Samoa)
Akava’ine (Rarotonga)
Fakaleiti (Tonga)
Fakafifine (Niue)
++ for all remaining identities, gender diverse expressions and roles within the Pacific.
We caught up with the producer of the show Gabriel Faatau’uu-Satiu for an Irresistible chat about his work with the Pacific diaspora and the importance of celebrating Pacific stories far and wide.
Gabriel is a proud storyteller of Sāmoan heritage living and working in Darug & Dharawal country. He is the founder and creative director of Satiu Studios, one of few independent production companies dedicated to Pacific voices and stories in Australia.
Tell us a bit about the Pacific Queer Storytelling event.
Gabriel Faatau’uu-Satiu: I’ve curated a great lineup of Pacific storytellers, and when I say storytellers, I don’t just mean people telling stories in a wordy sort of way. These people also tell stories using different parts of their bodies. We have a poet, a fashion designer, a pole dancer, a creative producer/scriptwriter, and one of the Aunties- a beacon within the community whose work spans across 3 decades locally and globally.
Tell us more about the MVPFAFF++ acronym?
This is the Pasifika equivalent to the LGBTQIA+ acronym. It was coined by Phylesha Brown-Acton in 2011. She actually reached out when we first started promoting the show, so I felt like she gave us her blessing which is huge.
Our lineup is a mix of bodies that identify across both acronyms – which I find very exciting because it shows queer people and global indigenous queer people can co-exist.
The acronym definitely has a lot more traction in Aotearoa/New Zealand- where Phylesha is based, and the idea was birthed. But lately, it’s refreshing to see people who have major platforms use the Pacific terms or the whole acronym as a reclamation of their identity.
Some of these early adopters are; the FAFSWAG Collective – an arts collective led by queer Pacific people; Kween Kong, a Tongan/Samoan drag queen from Australia; in the United States Sasha Colby, a drag queen from Hawaii who won RuPauls Drag Race; Jaiyah Saelua who was the first openly fa’afafine/transgender person to play in a FIFA World Cup qualifier; and actresses Kaimana and Donato Fatuesi. There are many more as well.
Prior to colonisation, queer identities were more accepted, so are many of the terms in the acronym quite old?
These terms are not new. The terms existed in pre-colonial times and it’s beautiful to see so many people reclaim the power of these terms by bringing them back in a positive way. Most of the islands have their own terms for third and fourth gender people which they use on a daily basis.
If you break down the etymology of the words, they’re embedded into the language of where they belong. For instance, in Samoa, we have an umbrella term fa’afafine which loosely means in the manner of a woman. A fa’afafine doesn’t always fit the mold of the LGBTQIA+ rhetoric as they can appear between the spectrum of a transwoman, or a gay man with feminine qualities and mannerisms. So we as Samoans can identify a fa’afafine, whereas in a western context, a fa’afafine can look many ways – which I think is a little more complex.
You were part of the UPU theatre experience at Sydney Opera House recently. Do you feel like more space is opening up for Pacific stories and performance in Australia, and in Sydney in particular?
I grew up in Aotearoa/New Zealand so I was fortunate to grow up with Pacific storytelling across most mediums. However, now living in Australia, the context is different because we are not a Pacific nation. The bar shifts because the priority should always be with the indigenous peoples of the lands we are on.
I was honoured to be part of the Sydney Opera House team to conduct community outreach and engagement work in the lead up to their season. It was my job to engage with the community and help sell the show – which we did – it sold out!
As much as I love supporting the work that is being done in Aotearoa/New Zealand who are really at the pinnacle of Pacific storytelling, the context of our Pacific diaspora here is vastly different. The experiences are different, therefore our stories are different. There is more space opening up for our stories to exist in both Sydney, and wider Australia. Large institutions need to look at and invest in the Pacific storytellers who are already living on Aboriginal soil.
Our community is filled with deeply rich Pacific stories but they currently exist within our own bubbles – deeply immersed within the community. Something I can hand-on-my-heart say is that compared to Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Australian diaspora has much more diverse Pacific stories – such as from our Melanesian and Micronesian communities.
You were involved with the Tinā film as well?
Alongside the Pasifika Film Fest, I worked with Madman Entertainment to coordinate the special Australian premiere screenings across Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. It was an epic 3-day weekend with 10 sold out screenings.
I was fortunate to spend time with the writer/director Miki Magasiva, and actors Anapela Polataivao and Beulah Koale. They shared a lot of their wisdom with me about making the film, and offered advice and encouragement about the waves of Pacific storytellers that are manoeuvring in the spaces here. They’ve continued to maintain their support of me even though the screenings happened a few months ago. So, I’ll always be thankful to Madman Entertainment and the giants from this film for allowing that.
Aside from storytelling, tourism is seen as a great way to build bridges between cultures. How do you see that?
I always encourage people, however long they’re going to the Pacific for, to keep their itinerary a little bit loose. What I mean by that is yes, do all the tourist stuff as it’s an important source of income for the communities. But I think it’s good to engage more locally and discover treasures and places that aren’t necessarily in the travel brochures.
Many years ago I had a client who used to go to the same hotel in Samoa every year. I’d hear about the same trip- the hotel, the golf course, the short ocean swim – and that was it. It didn’t scream or say anything about Samoa to me.
So I challenged him to get to know the real island; ride a bus, eat food at the local market, and get to know another side of Samoa. When he came back, he’s done just that and ended up on his own adventure. He was so thankful. It allowed him to connect with the locals, and see parts of Samoa outside of his hotel. I know it opened his eyes to other parts of the island he wasn’t aware of, such as the extreme levels of poverty and things we take for granted here in western countries.
For this man, Samoa was a place of paradise, escape, relaxation and holidaying, but for me it’s culture, storytelling, genealogy, and home. When he came back with more understanding of our struggles with issues such as poverty, and the impacts of climate change, it meant he could come back into the diaspora with knowledge and make changes that could support Samoa, and all the islands, in a positive way.
In the space of climate change, I see organisations like the Pacific Climate Warriors and 350 Pacific do so much. The Pacific Islands are on the frontline of climate impacts, but so often we’re not seated at the table for worldwide decisions. I encourage all of our non-Pacific communities who care about the islands or visit the Pacific to support us and organisations like these. Not only for the survival of our islands, but for us Pacific storytellers as well.
