Through our Marianas Storytelling: Land and Lineage Saturday matinee series, we’re launching a month-long celebration of Chamorro/CHamoru culture through film in partnership with the Guam Museum Foundation, the Department of CHamoru Affairs, PBS Guam, and the Guam International Film Festival, with support from Pacific Islanders in Communication.

On these next three Saturdays, the 16th, 23rd and 30th this Mes CHamoru, we’ll be featuring short films that reflect the diversity, creativity, and brilliance of Chamorro/CHamoru stories throughout the Marianas archipelago.

Our inaugural program theme was Connecting Culture Through Music (celebrating the film Tradewinds by Mighty Island, and the Manamko’ to Manhoben feature on Señot Vicente ‘Ben’ Meno and Kåntan CHamorita). The March 16 program, themed, From Our Ancestors (featuring the Guampedia’s I Tinituhon, the CHamoru/Chamorro creation story, and film on traditional healing with Saipan suruhånu and educator Señot Donald Mendiola as a live speaker).

We are excited to invite the community to join us at the Guam Museum theatre on March 23 at 2:30 pm for a special screening and the Guam premiere of the film Promesa by Dr. Lola Quan Bautista. Please see page three for the full list of films and live session dates.

The films, alongside select interactive sessions with our celebrated cultural practitioners, foreground the ancestral practice of storytelling as the dynamic vessel for perpetuating our culture.

This Mes CHamoru, we encourage our community to continue seeking out the stories that propel us forward. Tumaiguini reminds us that it has always been our way to attend to the ancestral knowledge that is woven into our language, and running through the stories that our people tell.