Spotlight Documentary: Before the Moon Falls

On an early morning in May 2024, Kimberlee Bassford awoke to a message on her phone. Her film’s protagonist, the acclaimed Samoan writer Sia Figiel, had been arrested in Samoa.

For eight years Bassford had been crafting an intimate portrait of Figiel, a groundbreaking novelist and poet, celebrated worldwide as the first to give voice to the struggles of Samoan girls and women. She and her team had followed Fiegel’s triumphs and hardships, from literary stardom to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and had nearly completed the film when tragedy struck.

What emerges is a searing exploration of mental illness in all its complexity. Deeply nuanced and human, Before the Moon Falls is at once a compelling tribute to one woman’s extraordinary life and a reckoning with the devastating consequences of what happens when care is absent or inconsistent.

Presented in Partnership with Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC)