July 17, 2014
Whanganui River story in film fest
It’s film festival season, and a fresh crop of Maori movies are about to get their first public showing.
Tonight the Auckland International Film Festival opens with a screening of The Dark Horse starring Cliff Curtis.
On Sunday it’s the turn of Paora Joseph to tell the story of his own iwi and its struggle to to regain guardianship over the Whanganui River.
Te Awa Tupua – Voices from the River started as a commission from the Whanganui Maori Trust Board to record a major four-day event which took place on the river last year.
It included Pakaitore Day to mark the 1995 occupation of Moutoa Gardens, an iwi summit to discuss the tribe’s Waitangi Tribunal claim, a waka ama day for young people and a tamariki day for children.
Joseph says he soon realised there was a larger story to be told.
"It’s always about the story and I think the intent by the iwi was to document the completion of the settlement and also the celebration around the them of raukotahi, which epitomises the whakatauki: 'Na nga tupuna i hauroatia te maru o te tangata' you never walk alone because your ancestors are behind you, there are those who walk beside you and there are those generations that will come in the future," he says.
Paora Joseph’s Te Awa Tupua will premiere at Auckland’s Sky City Theatre on Sunday and screen again in Wellington the following Sunday.
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