Creator Taofia Pelesasa on confronting "collective shadows" in SBS Original 'Moni'

SBS Australia

04-07-2025

Filmed in Western Sydney among Australia's largest Samoan & Pacific populations, new six-part SBS Digital Originals series Moni follows titular character Moni (Chris Alosio), a gay Samoan man who returns to Sydney for his sister's wedding. However, he soon runs into the ghost of his dead mother Tina (Tina Leaitua), who wants to know why her son never returned home for her burial. Created and written by Taofia Pelesasa (founder of Pelesasa Pics), and produced by Nicole Coventry ( Robbie Hood , Top of the Lake ), Moni is a beautiful insight into the culturally rich landscape of Western Sydney's Samoan community. At its heart Moni is also a queer narrative set in one of the most heavily religious areas of Australia.
Chris Alosio (Moni) is emotional about his sister in her wedding dress. " Moni brought together Pasifika creatives from all over the country to bring a beautiful and important story to life and to do it our way," said lead actor Chris Alosio. "I am immensely proud to be a part of this project knowing that young Pasifika-Australians can switch on their screens and indulge in a story that has direct and relevant references to their experiences growing up here." The world of Moni is complex, deeply layered and intimately beautiful. It is a story that is specifically Australian while also being uniquely Samoan, bringing much needed authenticity to the screen.
Speaking with SBS, creator Taofia Pelesasa discussed the importance of Moni at a time like this, and reflected on the Samoan proverbs that played a key part in the series' narrative, from 'Va' (Sacred Space) to the ever-vital 'Teu le Va' (Tending to your Sacred Space).
Behind the camera, in front of the camera and even in the score, roles in Moni were filled by brilliant established and emerging Pasifika-Australian talent – what was it like to work among such amazing people? It was exciting, and a moment of reaffirming what I already knew as a Pasifika practitioner in Australia; that if given the opportunity Pasifika-Australian storytellers have the capacity to tell their own stories in this country and to do that in a uniquely Pasifika-Australian way... getting the work done to the standard we need without losing the things that make us uniquely Pasifika: our communal spirit, our cultural values and of course our constant laughter.
Many of the other Pasifika-Australian creatives involved in Moni are people who I have grown with over the past few years, over various other Pasifika projects in and around our community and being able to see them all in their elements and for others to witness – that's something that I will always cherish.
Taofia Pelesasa (Showrunner) runs through a script with Maua Fuifui (Uncle Pika) Watching a new gifted talent like Maiko Taukafa (Young Moni) guided by the experience of Chris Alosio (Moni) in front of the camera, to long-time collaborator Junior Meredith (2nd Cam Operator) get exposure and experience alongside the skillset of Lucas Tomoana (Director of Photography) – this experience has been full-circle and a nice reminder that Moni wasn't just an opportunity for us as a community to make a show - it was an opportunity for us to build a solid foundation for Pasifika-Australian filmmakers and creatives who come after us. At its heart, Moni is about the difficult relationships we have with family, especially the bonds between a son and a mother. Could you talk about something you took from Moni and Tina's mother/son journey? There's so many messages to take away from Moni and Tina's relationship which I think are universal; however a lesson more specific to myself as a Samoan is the importance of the 'Va' or 'Sacred Space' which is an overarching concept of relationships in traditional Samoan culture. When I wrote Moni , I wanted to make sure that a specific Samoan concept or value guided the show and held it together and if you were raised in a particular type of Samoan home, like myself, then you would have heard the Samoan proverb 'Teu le Va' or 'Tend to your sacred spaces' a lot – particularly from your parents and always when there was a dispute between yourself and your siblings. The idea that a family can not move forward if all the spaces between one another were not in harmony. The world of Moni is driven by the same idea; but most particularly between Moni and Tina (mother and son), who have to overcome some hard truths in order to 'tend to their space'.
Chris Alosio (Moni) & Tina Leaitua (Tina) in 'Moni' episode 3.
If anything, the greatest lesson I took away from Moni was that the lessons we have been taught by our migrant parents still have a place in the way we move in this world and even though I may be here in Australia with all the bells and whistles that that life comes with, the cultural lessons and wisdom of my Pasifika parents still have a place, if not the most important place, in my life. What is one thing you hope viewers take from Moni's journey throughout the series? For wider Australian audiences I really hope what Moni does is offer an alternative truth to what Australians assume they already know about us and our community. That yes, we play footy and yes we might also be the bouncer at the door of your local pub – but we are a far more layered community irrespective of the media's inability to celebrate that.
I come from a family of teachers and lawyers and nurses and creatives and for me – that's the Pasifika world I come from which has informed how I move and one that I hope Australia gets to see in stories beyond Moni . Moni hopefully allows viewers some insight that Pasifika people in Western Sydney and around the country are just getting through life here, like everyone else – with our own dreams and struggles, losses and victories.
I think Moni was an opportunity to assist in removing the stigma in our community which comes with acknowledging that Queer people exist among us and have always been deeply weaved into the fabric of who we are. For Pasifika and Samoan audiences I hope Moni's journey evokes the spirit of courage in our community to face the mirror inwards at ourselves and confront our own collective shadows. To hopefully control what we can control in our own narrative from the inside. The word 'Moni' itself means 'truth' and is asking an audience to seek just that – a collective watershedding of uncomfortable truths in order to really progress our community in honest and holistic ways. In general I want an audience to see a Samoan family from Western Sydney just moving through life, confronting the obstacles that life throws at them and overcoming them. And remembering that yes, this story may be a Samoan-Australian story or a Pasifika-Australian story but more importantly it is also just an Australian story and there are things which we can contribute to the landscape of this country through our stories.
Gerick Leota (Sefa), Chris Alosio (Moni), Julian Maroun (Brandon) & CJ Bloomfield (Tai).
One of the messages of Moni is one that confidently expresses that the Queer community have and always will exist among us. How important do you feel this message was to communicate through the character of Moni ? Did you face any challenges along the way? I think Moni was an opportunity to assist in removing the stigma in our community which comes with acknowledging that Queer people exist among us and have always been deeply weaved into the fabric of who we are. In Moni I wanted to communicate that by simplifying the conversation and having characters like Moni and the Fa'afafine (a socially accepted gender in Samoan culture that exists outside the male/female binary) character of Sila, played by the formidable Ella Ganza, exist freely and unquestionably in the world of Moni – by decentralising their sexuality or gender identity as the cause of their central conflict as they are so often are portrayed. I feel like that approach is more aligned with our traditional Samoan worldviews on gender and sexuality – not that those things aren't important identity markers – but that they are one of many identity markers that make us who we are.
I hope that this approach helps to make these discussions less political within our community and help to humanise them – by simply showing queer characters just contributing to their communities and their families like all other Samoans.
The word 'Moni' itself means 'truth' and is asking an audience to seek just that – a collective water shedding of uncomfortable truths in order to really progress our community in honest and holistic ways. What were some of your highlights from your experience filming Moni ? There was a shoot day when we were shooting a 'White Sunday' scene which required an audience of Pasifika children and so we had so many young Pasifika people turn up to play 'the community' in that scene. That was a highlight for me because of the potential power that moment could have on these children as they grow up. Having their first experience on a television set and seeing Pasifika actors in front of the camera, Pasifika people on the camera and behind the scenes controlling the narrative – that visibility for our generation was never there, but to be able to gift that experience to the next generation is perhaps the most beautiful gift. That they know from the outset that it's possible. SBS Digital Originals series Moni is now streaming on SBS On Demand.