Lañinbwil’s Gift
“Jack Niedenthal and Suzanne Chutaro have successfully brought the Marshall Islands into the realm of global cinema – and the film world is a richer place thanks to their distinctive efforts.” –Phil Hall, Film Threat, July 2011
Netha Gideon stars as the controversial Lijimu, a traditional Marshallese shaman who is hated by some and respected by others. Photo: Microwave Films
Lañinbwil’s Gift is the story of Jacob, an old island man with a complicated secret.
When Jacob was a teenager, a noniep, a Marshallese fairy known for helping troubled souls, transformed him from a homeless simpleton into a normal young man. This favor, however, came with a huge cost: The noniep made Jacob promise that one day in the future he must bestow
this newfound intelligence upon another deserving person with Jacob’s only instructions being that he would know ‘who’ when the time came.
After a lifetime of pondering this otherworldly commitment to the noniep, Jacob finally discovers Lañinbwil, a homeless young man who has been abandoned by his family and who lives in a large tattered cardboard box beside a government office building… Just when Jacob begins to get close to the troubled youth, Lañinbwil unwittingly gets caught up in a war of mystical power between an evil Mejenkwar, a demon that possesses young pregnant women, and her archenemy, the gifted, shamanic old woman, Lijimu.
The Mejenkwar is enraged because Lijimu has been enormously successful in driving the demon away from her human victims. The vengeful Mejenkwar, fed up with failure, launches a two-pronged attack: First, the powerful demon transforms Lañinbwil into the legendary trickster, Letao, whose sole purpose is to drive Lijimu’s beloved and beautiful teenage grand daughter Miko insane
and thus make her grandmother miserable. Secondly, the Mejenkwar possesses Kaila, who is the pregnant girlfriend of Bartowe, one of Lijimu’s most trusted friends. Once possessed by the demon, the lovely Kaila slips into an eerie coma that even doctors can’t comprehend.
Though the island town becomes the stage for a classic struggle between the forces of light and darkness, as the characters’ personalities battle unaccountable life-altering influences, hope awaits all in Lañinbwil’s box in the form of a simple broken telephone…
The film stars Iohaan Anjolok, Lulani Ritok, Netha Gideon, Lyel Tarkwon, Wyre Kimej, Martha Horiuchi, Randon Jack and Maxter Tarkwon. The film was shot on location in Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands, and at Hershey Park, Pennsylvania in the United States. Lañinbwil’s Gift contains several new musical compositions along with some old time favorites performed by Nelu deBrum, Lulani Ritok, Mattu Lejjena, Joseph deBrum, Randon Jack, Lami Maddison, the band Ri-Karere Ran and the band Awa Zero.
Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands is a community based film production company in the Marshall Islands. Actors in this film all volunteered for their roles and represent various organizations in the Marshall Islands including the Marshall Islands Government, the College of the Marshall Islands, the Women’s Athletic Club (WAC), the Majuro Cooperative School, the Marshall Islands High School and numerous local businesses.
Below is a Radio Australia interview with producer Jack Niedenthal:
“Even without getting a lot of the inside culture-based jokes, the movie’s …funny, and is a good watch. If it ever makes it to video near you, and you don’t mind the subtitles (or speak Marshallese), I recommend it, if for nothing else than a bit of insight to a small island nation’s people.” – Jeff Warren, U.S. based movie reviewer
