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Key members of the team behind the film version of Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors have reunited to put one of Witi Ihimaera’s novels on the big screen.
Mahana is based on Ihimaera’s novel Bulibasha about the rivalry of two Maori shearing families.
It’s director Lee Tamahori’s first New Zealand film in 20 years.
Tamahori says he wanted to do a film about the East Coast from the 1960s and Ihimaera was the person who has been telling those stories.
The producer is Robin Scholes and Temuera Morrison stars as proud patriarch Tamihana Mahana.
Nancy Brunning plays his wife, Jim Moriarty plays his arch-rival Rupeni Poata, and the role of Mahana’s 14-year-old son Simeon went to Tolaga Bay Area School pupil Akuhata Keefe.
Mahana is funded by the New Zealand Film Commission, New Zealand On Air, Maori Television, Entertainment One, Wild Bunch and private equity investors.
It opens in cinemas nationwide next March.
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