Moriori

This Feltex Award-winning documentary follows two grandchildren of the last full-blooded Moriori back to Rēkohu in the Chatham Islands, to rediscover their heritage. Charles and Margaret Solomon learn about 1000 years of Moriori settlement: Polynesian origins, tree carvings, and Pacifist beliefs tragically tested in 1835. Nine years before a book by Michael King and Barry Barclay's film The Feathers of Peace, this doco revised popular misconceptions about the Moriori. Wayne Tourell writes about here about directing the doco, while Moriori leader Maui Solomon argues that it helped launch a revival of Moriori culture.  

The New Zealanders commenced to kill us like sheep wherever we were found. Some of our people were eaten, and others thrown to the birds of heaven.

– The memories of Moriori Hirawanu Tapu, who was 11 when roughly 900 Te Āti Awa people arrived on Rēkohu

Key Cast & Crew

Bil Henderson

Editor

Mark White

Designer

William Southgate

Composer

Graham Smith

Cinematographer

Bill Saunders

Producer, Writer, Narrator

Wayne Tourell

Director