No Regrets presents a frank slice of unscripted narrative delivered by my father as he sits at his kitchen table days after major eye surgery, and a week after my grandmothers funeral. Looking back on his experiences growing up in Vaiala, Auckland, and Laie, he recounts the tensions between the expectations of family and community. With their desire to see him perform on the football field and his own lack of interest in sport, No Regrets illustrates the high cultural expectations placed on Pacific youth by their families to succeed both academically and athletically.
In Dziga Vertov's style of Kino-Pravda, it provokes it's own kind of truth within my fathers organised and grouped memory collections. Aesthetically the setting sets the tone. Kitchen table, talkback radio, and alcohol, play supporting roles and lend themselves to a kind of irony given his medical condition. I wanted to simulate what he saw through his limited vision at the time. The vivid descriptions of how his sight interpreted colours and shapes, inform the final look which has a highly saturated and blurry treatment.
