A Return To Home: Gagana Samoa - a new documentary

I’m hyped to share a new documentary I had the privilege of working on, A Return to Home: Gagana Samoa, is complete and has been submitted to film festivals. We filmed this story last year in Oceanside, following families reconnecting with the Samoan language through a powerful community program.

This film belongs to the people who shared their lives so openly, and I’m honored to help carry their voices forward. Fingers crossed for festival screenings - more updates soon. In the meantime, you can check out the FB page for it or follow us to stay up to date on it!

About the film: Oceanside, California is home to one of the largest Samoan populations on the continental U.S.. Many American-born Samoans are growing up disconnected from their native language. With fewer elders remaining and fluency fading across generations, the question becomes urgent: who will carry the language forward?

A Return to Home: Gagana Samoa is a 30-minute documentary that follows adults and families enrolled in a free Samoan language and performing arts program created by Dr. Grant Muāgututiʻa and the APIDA Initiative at CSU San Marcos. Through intimate interviews, classroom moments, and cultural practice, the film reveals how learning Gagana Sāmoa unlocks deeper connections- between grandparents and grandchildren, parents and children, and individuals and their own sense of self.

At its heart, this is a story about language as belonging and what is possible when people are given the tools to return to who they are.

📍 A Return to Home: Gagana Samoa (2025)
🌺 Language. Culture. Connection.
🎬 A Documentary by Start to Finish Media Co. | 31 min
👉 sfmediacompany.com | #ReturnToHomeFilm

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