Mungau Dain

Mungau Dain (1994 – 5 January 2019) was a ni-Vanuatu actor and villager who starred in the 2015 Australian-Vanuatuan film, Tanna. Dain, who had never acted before, was cast in the film alongside Marie Wawa, another Yakel villager, and other local untrained actors. Tanna, which is based on the true story of a ni-Vanuatu couple in 1987 who committed suicide after their tribes refused to allow them to marry, won the Audience Award Pietro Barzisa at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in 2015 and was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017.

Biography Dain was born in 1994 in the small village of Yakel on Tanna island, Tafea Province. However, Wawa falls in love with the grandson of her village chief, Dain (played by Mungau Dain).

In 2017, following Tanna's Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Dain said he never imagined that the film would make it as far as Port Vila, let alone Hollywood. He quickly developed an infection in his leg, which went untreated and led to sepsis. A large number of Tanna residents gathered to meet the coffin and plane as well. Dain was survived by his wife, Nancy, and their three children - a daughter and two sons.