For him, it is the month of May of all emotions, of all hopes. At 27, Rivaldo Pawawi plays his first role in the cinema, in the comedy by Jérémie Sein, The Coubertin Spirit, which hits theaters Wednesday, May 8. Alongside Emmanuelle Bercot and Benjamin Voisin in particular, the young Kanak plays a dilettante swimmer from Vanuatu, who participates in the Olympic Games and comes across a “France team” in distress.
“The actors knew neither Vanuatu, nor New Caledonia, nor the Kanaks. I always took advantage of every opportunity to talk about “the country”. How to bring Kanak culture without violence, that’s my question. I want it to be accessible to everyone”explains Rivaldo, that The world met in Paris on May 3.
The young man, who arrived in France in 2016 to study anthropology in Lyon, is caught up in Caledonian news in “the country”: block-to-block demonstrations from the independence and loyalist camps on the subject of the reform of the electoral body on April 13 in Nouméa, the impasse in political discussions on the future of the territory, the economic crisis, fears of a return to violence forty years after the start of the “events”, in 1984. The draft constitutional law on the electorate will be submitted to the Laws Committee of the National Assembly on Tuesday, May 7.
” I’m worriedadmits Rivaldo. I’m afraid I won’t have my home tomorrow. Everything that was seen as inalienable in the political agreements of the past seems weakened. » The young man comes from the island of Lifou. He was raised in a Protestant family from the Wedrumel tribe, which involved several of its members in the Caledonian Union (UC) and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS). An uncle died at the start of the “events”. Another left for Libya with a handful of activists. “Strong men. It’s a base. »
“The little ones will become big”
But, regrets the young actor, “my father was into violence”. In his college years, Rivaldo lived with his grandfather, Léopold Hnacipan, a French professor and writer. “He brought me understanding of the world, gentleness, discretion. In my house, as in the Bible, we say that we must always be the smallest. The little ones will become big. »
This May 5, in New Caledonia, the Kanak commemorated their nineteen dead who fell with two soldiers in the assault on the Ouvéa cave in 1988. In Montpellier, where Rivaldo Pawawi resides among two hundred Kanak students, the The La Case calédonienne association wanted to shed light on memory by organizing a debate around Our warthe documentary by Emmanuel Desbouiges and Dorothée Tromparent on the children of the “events”.
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