- Welcome to Independent Lens .
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut .
It happens all too often on our beautiful planet.
An island paradise tucked away,
almost removed completely from the modern world
soon becomes a business opportunity
for those seeking to expand civilization.
Such is the case with tonight's film,
the documentary Eating Up Easter .
For centuries, Easter Island
has been a mystery to much of the world.
It's a destination for those curious
about its unique history and mysterious past, exotic locale
and those one-thousand year old plus statues,
also known as Moai.
Unfortunately, for those who call it home,
in recent years
it's also been a destination for the trash of other nations',
tons and tons of plastic that wash up on their shoreline
while developers are changing their precious landscape
all too rapidly.
Eating Up Easter is directed by filmmaker Sergio Rapu,
a native Rapa Nui, who crafts his film's narrative
as though it's being told to his newborn son.
Sergio uses four native islanders as subjects
to tell their personal stories
of coping with gentrification and booming tourism
while trying to preserve their indigenous culture.
If I could geek out for just a quick aside,
I recently found out that those stone heads on Easter Island,
the Moai, have entire bodies crafted beneath them,
that over the centuries
have gradually been buried by sediment.
If you Google it, the pictures are really cool.
Eating Up Easter starts now
on PBS Wisconsin, your home for independent film.