NgamaruRaerino
- Writer
- Cultural expert
Encouraged to stand and speak on the marae in his teens, Te Teko raised Ngamaru Raerino later spent time as a policeman and a musician. After joining supernatural series Mataku as a Māori consultant, he was a Maori advisor for Shortland Street, one of a run of South Pacific Pictures shows on which he provided advice about tikanga. In 2002, Raerino and his friend Bradford Haami co-wrote and directed romance He Pōraruraru, for te reo series Aroha. Alongside work as a Māori advisor and actor, Raerino translated Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat into te reo, and established a Māori media degree at AUT. He died on 12 March 2023.
Screenography
“I remember something my dad once said to me. 'Son, there is no livelihood for you in the Māori language. You won't fill your cupboards to feed your children . . . So pursue instead the English language.' Now, if my father was still alive I would tell him, 'Dad, you're wrong, because my livelihood is in the Māori language. The things that I have achieved have been through the language.' And that is what I carry as I walk through life.”