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Most portmanteau features are potluck. But “Vai” has a lovely consistency of style and content that heightens the accessibility of its unique value as a combined effort among eight native female directors from eight different Pacific Island cultures. The task of each writer-helmer was to create a 10-minute vignette from a fictive woman’s life, each segment advancing a decade or so forward, deploying a single continuous shot where possible.

The result is neither straightforward narrative nor polemical abstract, but instead an aesthetically pleasing meditation on womanhood and vanishing traditions — in places where those things have been under siege from various forms of colonialism for hundreds of years. Though offshore commercial prospects will be limited (Vendetta Films is releasing in New Zealand and Australia), this is a natural choice for festival and educational programmers seeking input from cinematically underrepresented communities.

“Vai” doesn’t really pretend to be the story of a single character — in fact,...