In Spring One Plants Alone

In the late 1970s filmmaker Vincent Ward spent a year and a half visiting remote Maungapōhatu in the Ureweras, capturing the bond between 82-year-old Māori kuia Puhi and her adult disabled son, Niki. This excerpt from Ward's evocative documentary opens with karakia and tears at a urupa. Puhi gives Niki his medication and chops wood to heat their spartan cottage, all the while reciting prayers. More than two decades later, Ward revisited the life story of Puhi in the feature-length Rain of the Children. In Spring One Plants Alone was shot by acclaimed cinematographers Alun Bollinger and Leon Narbey.