Filmmaker and writer Barry Barclay - director of landmark productions Tangata Whenua and Ngati - was a longtime campaigner for the right of indigenous people to tell their own stories, to their own people. In 2004 he was made an Arts Foundation Laureate, and in 2007 a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Barry's more celebrated achievements [...] were founded on the back of a long and compassionate journey of discovery of self, of others and a rigorous, vigorous, disarmingly playful and punishingly sharp mind.
– Critic and filmmaker Graeme Tuckett