Commentary: The Tokelau solar project first came to the attention of this filmmaker at a Pacific Energy Summit in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2013. Three remote islands in the Pacific becoming the first 100 percent solar-powered nation on earth and setting an example for the complete adaptation of sustainable energy sounded like a story too good to be overlooked by mainstream news media. However, research demonstrated that this was indeed widely ignored. So the author set about his usual practice of pitching the idea to his colleagues at German Television. The fact that he had already made a short documentary about Tokelau in 2006 ( ARTE TV Reportage: Independence Referendum in Tokelau ) and was thus familiar with the territory and its people, which worked in his favour. But funding proved to be a difficult challenge because the logistics of the project demanded a longer than usual shooting schedule and crew time. In the end, a solution was found by accessing additional funding and negotiating a bulk deal with the crew to make The Solar Nation of Tokelau (2014).

中文翻译：

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托克劳的太阳之国：纪录片制作的冒险

评论：托克劳太阳能项目于 2013 年在新西兰奥克兰举行的太平洋能源峰会上首次引起这位电影制片人的注意。太平洋上的三个偏远岛屿成为地球上第一个 100% 太阳能供电的国家，并为可持续能源的完全改编听起来像是一个好到无法被主流新闻媒体忽视的故事。然而，研究表明，这确实被广泛忽视。因此，作者开始了他向德国电视台的同事推销这个想法的惯常做法。事实上，他已经在 2006 年制作了一部关于托克劳的简短纪录片（ARTE 电视报道：托克劳独立公投），因此熟悉该领土及其人民，这对他有利。但事实证明，资金是一项艰巨的挑战，因为该项目的后勤工作需要比平时更长的拍摄时间和工作人员时间。最后，通过获得额外资金并与船员谈判达成批量交易找到了解决方案，以制作托克劳太阳能国（2014）。