Hautoa Mā! The Rise of Māori Cinema

Documentary Hautoa Mā! The Rise of Māori Cinema reveals the remarkable impact Māori have made on New Zealand cinema. Alongside film clips and interviews, it goes behind the scenes on te reo movie The Dead Lands (2014). In this opening excerpt, Taika Waititi recalls the emotional impact of first seeing Once Were Warriors, and Warriors director Lee Tamahori describes his fear the movie would echo the views of bigots. Dead Lands star Lawrence Makoare (whose CV also includes te reo film The Māori Merchant of Venice) pays a memorable tribute to Don Selwyn, who trained many Māori to work on-screen. 

We've got a lot more people on the ground than we did 20 years ago ... we still have to compete a lot with others who ... see the commercial value and the artistic and cultural value of our stories. And we're competing with everybody — including ourselves — to get to those stories.

– Actor/producer Cliff Curtis

Key Cast & Crew

Taika Waititi

Subject

Lawrence Makoare

Subject

Lee Tamahori

Subject

James Rolleston

Subject

Libby Hakaraia

Director, Camera, Sound Recordist

Tainui Stephens

Writer, Producer, Subject, Sound Recordist