Julian Arahanga

Julian Arahanga (sometimes credited as Sonny Arahanga) is no stranger to film sets. He made his screen debut at the age of 11 in short film The Makutu on Mrs Jones. Arahanga played one of the main roles, as a boy who suspects a local Māori of having placed a makutu (curse) on a Pākēha woman (Annie Whittle). Looking back, Arahanga says he was too young to realise how lucky he was to be working with an actor of Whittle's presence, as well as kaumātua Sonny Waru, who was chosen to accompany landmark exhibition Te Māori to the United States.  

Arahanga went on to work on pioneering Māori-led anthology series E Tipu E Rea, in the art department; it was the first of many behind the scenes jobs on film and television, often working in the camera department. Arahanga also acted occasionally on screen.

In 1993 E Tipu director Lee Tamahori, who had worked with Arahanga on a number of commercials, invited him to join the cast of low budget feature Once Were Warriors. Arahanga was 21. He played Nig, eldest son of Beth and Jake, who joins a gang and gets distinctive tattoos along one side of his face. Arahanga said the character was staunch "because of the conflicts between his mother and father. He's got a good heart behind all the staunchness and tough guy image." 

The film went on to outgross Jurassic Park on its New Zealand release. Time magazine rated it one of the 10 best films of the year, while Entertainment Weekly reviewer Wade Major found it "among the most devastatingly powerful motion pictures ever made". In 2014 Arahanga set out to track down the Warriors cast for Māori Television documentary Once Were Warriors - Where Are They Now, which he also directed.

Two years later Arahanga won a starring role in the Gregor Nicholas romance Broken English, which won praise from American reviewers. Arahanga played the chef who falls for a young Croatian immigrant, only to find her family are not thrilled. Dominion reviewer Costa Botes noted the "consistently potent and engaging performances, especially those of the leads, Aleksandra Vujcic, Julian Arahanga and Rade Servedzija". 

Reviewers for The New York Times, the LA Weekly and Australia's Herald Sun all name-checked Arahanga's performance. Sight and Sound reviewer Laura Miller praised Arahanga's "unselfconscious virility" in contrast to the forced masculinity of Hollywood. Arahanga and Vujcic, she wrote, both "glow with the radiant sexiness of nascent stardom, their characters all the more compelling for not being too innocent."

In 1998, while working on blockbuster-in-the-making The Matrix (playing one of Laurence Fishburne's crew) Arahanga was glad to reprise his Once Were Warriors role in a cameo for What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? At the time of release, the sequel was the second most successful Kiwi feature screened on home soil. Arahanga recalled his experience working with director Ian Mune in this video interview for NZ On Screen. "He comes over and he gives Nancy [Brunning] some really good, strong direction . . . and then he looks at me and just says "I'm not sure what you're doing, but just keep doing it!"

In 2007 he joined the ensemble cast of Kiwi horror film The Ferryman, as a young man caught up in dark doings at sea. His acting CV also includes guest roles in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and The Lost World, plus movies Fracture and Eagle Versus Shark, and 48Hours film Toy Boy. 

Back in the late 90s, Arahanga had joined father Larry Parr at Parr's short-lived production company Kahukura Productions. Their relationship had grown since Parr directed him in short film The Makutu on Mrs Jones, when Julian was just 11-years-old. "....I'd only met him a few months before." Arahanga said in this video interview. "...in terms of a child meeting a parent for the first time and then going into something as intimate as making a film, it was quite a unique experience."

At Kahukura, Arahanga worked on low budget movie Magik and Rose, and co-produced award-winning teleplay Fish Skin Suit (2000) with Parr. Arahanga was pulled in by the quirky, "beautifully-written script" by playwright Briar Grace-Smith, which revolves around a sleepy fishing village visited by an unusual stranger.

Since then, Arahanga has largely worked behind the scenes in film and television. In 2001 he launched company Awa Films. Since 2008, Arahanga has made frequent forays into directing; his work at the helm includes two seasons of series Songs from the Inside, in which a quartet of musicians work beside prisoners as they create music. "We feel so lucky in New Zealand that we had a number of musicians who gladly gave up their time to come and support a project like this, " he told ScreenTalk. "They all say, all of them say that they got just as much, if not more, out of the process, as they felt they gave."

He worked with Songs producer Maramena Roderick on two seasons of series Behind the Brush, which chronicles some of the Māori subjects painted in the 19th century by Gottfried Lindauer. Arahanga also directed episodes of The New Migration, which followed people returning to their tribal roots,and two one-off productions inspired by Māori war heroes: 2008 documentary Turangaarere: The John Pohe Story chronicles the story of WWII pilot Porokoru Patapu (John) Pohe; 2011 docu-drama Dancing in the Sky follows WW1 flying ace Willam Rhodes-Moorhouse (played by Arahanga's real-life half-brother Tammy Davis). Both productions debuted during Anzac Day programming on Māori Television.

The late 2010s and early 2020s brought more television directing roles for Arahanga, largely for his production company. Through Awa Films he directed comedy shows Takes A Village and Colonial Combat, and four-part nature series Te Waiora. He also co-directed Beyond the Battalion with Michael Havas in 2017, which revisited Hava's past documentaries on World War Two.  

Feature Films have increasingly been a focus for Awa Film. Arahanga co-produced River of Freedom, which takes an insider's perspective on the 2022 protests at parliament, against Covid-19 related laws and sanctions. He also directed feature-length documentary The Stolen Children of Aotearoa, and was an executive producer of big screen drama Kōka.

Updated on 21 March 2025

Sources include
'Julian Arahanga: From acting in Once Were Warriors to directing Songs from the Inside...' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Andrew Whiteside. Loaded 29 March 2016. Accessed 29 March 2016 
Awa Films website. Accessed 21 March 2025
'Songs from the Inside' (broken link). Māori Television website. Accessed 29 March 2016
Lizzie Francke, Review of Once Were Warriors - Sight and Sound, April 1995
Laura Miller, Review of Broken English - Sight and Sound, August 1997 (Volume 7, No 8)
'Tammy Davis Stars in New World War I Docudrama' (Press Release). Scoop website. Loaded 1 April 2011. Accessed 21 March 2025
'Born to Fly: Porokoru Patapu: (John) Pohe' (Press Release - broken link) Throng website. Loaded 18 April 2008. Accessed 29 March 2016
Once Were Warriors press kit