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Sunday, April 2, 2006

Pacific Rim: Adele Horne’s The Tailenders

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts





Shot in Los Angeles, the Solomon Islands, and Mexico, Los Angeles-based Adele Horne’s first feature-length documentary explores the work of an evangelical missionary group known not only for their numerous conversions but for their recordings and translations of over 5,500 languages since their inception in 1939. Working in regions where indigenous communities face crises caused by global economic shifts, and using amazingly efficient low-tech audio recording devices, the missionaries seek out displaced and impoverished people, ostensibly in need of some kind of enlightenment. Elegantly structured and photographed, The Tailenders explores both the material and ideological means and meanings of these linguistic translations and spiritual transformations.

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