Latest news with #JulianArahanga
Scoop
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Mana Moana, Mana Tangata — The Untold Story Of Aotearoa's Landmark Fisheries Battle
A feature length documentary tells the story of how Māori fought to reclaim their fishing rights in an epic battle that changed the course of history and ensured Māori participation in the nation's fisheries resources for generations to come. Co-produced by Tawera Films' Toby Mills and Julian Arahanga of Awa Films, MANA MOANA, MANA TANGATA premieres at 8.30PM on Monday 18 August on Whakaata Māori and MĀORI+. From the 1980s, when the Crown's Quota Management System threatened to exclude Māori from their ancestral fisheries to the landmark 1992 Sealord Settlement, the first ever pan-iwi Treaty settlement, MANA MOANA, MANA TANGATA is a powerful account of resilience, legal brilliance, and cultural tenacity. Signed on 23 September 1992, the Sealord Deed of Settlement was a pivotal moment in Aotearoa's Treaty history: a victory that cemented Māori interests in the fishing industry. The documentary captures the high-stakes legal and political battles that raged for over a decade, pitting iwi against iwi and forcing the nation to reckon with issues such as customary title, the rights of urban Māori, and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). The title MANA MOANA, MANA TANGATA references the eventual fisheries settlement allocation model based on iwi coastline (inshore fisheries) and iwi population (blue water). Featuring the voices of those who fought the fight, including Tā Tipene O'Regan (Ngāi Tahu), who called it 'a war fought with pens,' and Shane Jones (Te Aupōuri), who called the settlement 'our net to reclaim the future' – MANA MOANA MANA TANGATA features interviews with those involved at all levels of the settlement – politicians, iwi leaders, industry leaders and whānau fishers. With key themes of indigenous sovereignty, economic empowerment, environmental stewardship, and the intergenerational legacy of Treaty settlements, the film is a story that resonates with indigenous peoples around the world. Thirty years on, the legacy of the fisheries settlement is an ongoing assertion of Māori resistance, passion, and ambition to secure a sustainable future. As the film closes, it looks ahead – to collective opportunities, and the challenges that still lie beyond the horizon. About MĀORI+: MĀORI+ is the digital gateway to te ao Māori – a free streaming app that brings together the best in Māori storytelling, language, news, haka and entertainment. Designed with whānau in mind, the platform is easy to navigate, available across devices, and constantly updated with fresh content. Download the app from Google Play or the Apple store. Watch online at About Whakaata Māori: Whakaata Māori is Aotearoa New Zealand's national indigenous media organisation, dedicated to revitalising and empowering te reo Māori, culture, and identity through storytelling. Guided by the vision, kia mauriora te reo - a future where te reo Māori is spoken everywhere, every day - Whakaata Māori fosters an environment where the language and its cultural heritage can thrive. Established in 2004, Whakaata Māori has delivered some of Aotearoa New Zealand's most cherished content, connecting audiences with stories that celebrate and uplift te reo Māori and Māori culture. Māori Television trades under its reo Māori name to better reflect the role it plays in revitalising te reo Māori, our culture, and sharing our stories across multiple platforms. Whakaata means 'to mirror', 'to reflect' or 'to display.'
1News
19-07-2025
- 1News
Haunting memories: new doco explores horror of growing up in 'care' in NZ
Journalist Aaron Smale has been covering the issue of abuse in care in New Zealand for over a decade and has now been involved with the making of a powerful documentary featuring adult survivors of our children's homes and other institutions. He reflects on the process of sharing part of a story, the whole of which is too big and too ugly to ever truly be told. Watch The Stolen Children of Aotearoa on TVNZ+. How do you tell the story on film of how more than 200,000 children were abused when they were in the custody of the state and how that abuse is connected to colonisation, Māori urbanisation, incarceration, gangs and a decades-long policy by the government to cover it all up? Short answer – you can't. The story is simply too big to be conveyed in any form. But myself and the team at Awa Films made an attempt at it – the result is The Stolen Children of Aotearoa, a nearly two-hour documentary that speaks to more than 20 survivors and also a line-up of advocates and experts. A new documentary tells of a shameful chapter in our history - one of systemic abuse in state care. (Source: Supplied) While I am primarily a print journalist, both a writer and photographer, it was virtually impossible to convey not only the magnitude of the abuse but the damage it has done to so many individuals and generations of whānau. In the last ten years I've written tens of thousands of words and also collaborated on a podcast on the Lake Alice adolescent unit where children were tortured in the 1970s. But there was always so much I couldn't get across. I've also worked intermittently in broadcasting and I knew that there would be something incredibly powerful about seeing and hearing survivors tell their story directly to viewers on a screen. As I have found out, film-making is a long and arduous business that requires a lot of people collaborating to bring a vision to a screen. I know the director Julian Arahanga, an old school mate, would agree that this project was more difficult than others for a number of reasons. The biggest problem we had was there was so many strong stories and compelling moments in the interviews we did with survivors and others. It was agonising making decisions about what to put in which inevitably means a decision about what to leave out. Furthermore, the survivors were not only telling their own individual stories, they were telling the stories of thousands of others that went through similar experiences. Many of them were friends and whānau and many didn't make it. At least two of those on the screen have since passed away. One of the most difficult decisions was around the descriptions of abuse and what to include in a limited timeframe. Although many of the survivors' accounts of abuse that are included in the documentary are horrific, they are by no stretch the worst incidents we heard. But there was a risk of turning the whole documentary into a trauma-porn, which obscures the human being experiencing that trauma. In the end there is enough there to give the viewer a sense of the seriousness of what thousands of children went through. And sometimes the most poignant moments are the silences as survivors struggle to find the words. While most of the survivors are Māori and the historical background is focused on Māori experience, there are also Pacifika and Pākeha voices. Although Māori communities were targeted by police and welfare authorities, so were working class whānau, which included Pākeha and Pacifika. If it was impossible to be comprehensive and answer every question in the documentary, at the very least I hope it raises not only understanding but also further questions for the audience. Why is it, for example, that New Zealand has removed more indigenous children from a smaller population in a shorter space of time than either Canada or Australia, but we are only now having a public reckoning with those events? Why are the stories of the Stolen Generations in Australia and the indigenous residential schools in North America globally known, but what happened in New Zealand is barely known even in New Zealand? Why is is that the connection between the violence inflicted on tens of thousands of children and the violence of prisons and gangs is repeatedly ignored in public discourse, particularly by the media and politicians? How is it that politicians prance around every election competing with each other about how tough they're going to be on crime, when no one was properly held responsible for this mass crime that has been going on for generations? The documentary touches on all these subjects, but the answers have broader implications beyond this immediate issue. For example, part of the reason the New Zealand public is so ignorant of these events and a major reason the state has failed to provide justice to victims of its own abuse is due to what was, in my opinion, the silencing of those victims by the Crown, denying the victims justice because it posed a significant threat of legal and financial liability. Perhaps the most troubling thing I have discovered in ten years of covering state abuse is not just the rape and torture of children, but the calculated ways lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians have gone about covering it up. The documentary implicitly speaks to this institutional willingness to not only abandon its victims but to inflict further harm by perverting and weakening the processes of accountability. One of the very special moments during a screening of the documentary at the Māoriland Film Festival in Otāki was the first moment when the late Moana Jackson comes up on screen. There was a collective gasp and then what I would describe as murmurings of aroha as people heard him speak. It reinforced the decision that we'd made to dedicate the documentary to him. In a conversation I had with Moana once, that didn't make it into the doco, he made the observation: 'Never mind tikanga. The Crown can't even obey its own laws.' I would encourage viewers to consider Moana's observation when watching the documentary and also when they next hear a politician on a soapbox about crime and punishment. I could repeat here some of the words of the victims from the documentary, but I think it best you see and hear them for yourself. There is also an accompanying podcast that is hosted on RNZ. One of the guiding kaupapa for all my work on this subject, including this documentary, is that one of the main objectives of telling these stories is to give survivors the dignity of being heard. For so long they have been silenced, ignored and even told by the Crown that they were lying, despite the Crown having a mountain of evidence that what they were saying was true. The survivors that participated in this documentary and the many other stories I have told are both dignified and heroic. Despite its limitations, I can only hope that it honours them and the many others that they represent. Watch The Stolen Children of Aotearoa on TVNZ+.
Scoop
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Doc Edge Unveils Full Programme For Landmark 20th Anniversary Festival
Press Release – Doc Edge Festival The countdown has begun! The 20th Anniversary Oscar-qualifying Doc Edge Festival has officially launched its 2025 programme, now live and on sale at This milestone edition features an unmissable and genre-defying line-up of 49 feature films, 29 short films, and 12 immersive projects that expose, educate, and entertain. Spanning urgent global issues to powerful local voices, the festival runs from 25 June to 24 August, bringing thought-provoking, inspiring stories to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and nationwide via the Virtual Cinema. This year's festival boasts 32 world premieres and 20 international premieres, tackling themes of community, resilience, and the universal power of human connection. These films are bold, raw, and resonant—reflecting the festival's 20-year legacy of fearless storytelling. Joining the already announced premiere films are these standout titles: MANA MOANA MANA TANGATA Dirs. Toby Mills, Julian Arahanga | New Zealand | 90 mins | 2025 | World Premiere In this compelling film, the battle to save Māori fishing rights unfolds as a powerful tale of resilience and determination. NO TEARS ON THE FIELD Dir. Lisa Burd | New Zealand | 2025 | 90 min | World Premiere Set in Taranaki, the film follows four young women chasing big rugby dreams, capturing the grit, heart, and camaraderie of grassroots women's sport. THREE DAYS IN FEBRUARY Dir. Serena Stevenson | New Zealand | 74 min | 2025 | World Premiere Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Splore festival, this is a cinematic celebration of human connection through an intimate and often playful lens. A QUIET LOVE Dir. Garry Keane | Ireland | 2025 | 95 min | World Premiere Three Deaf couples share the stories of how they met and fell in love. Together, these cinematic love letters weave a rich tapestry of Deaf experience over a period of 70 years. FATAL WATCH Dirs. Mark Benjamin, Katie Carpenter | USA | 2025 | 88 min | International Premiere The film set on the high seas exposes the largely unseen world of fisheries observers, whose warnings about illegal fishing practices have resulted in fatal consequences for those sounding the alarm. IN WAVES AND WAR Dirs. Jon Shenk, Bonni Cohen | USA | 2024 | 108 min | International Premiere Three Navy SEALs find themselves at the cutting-edge of a different frontline: a lifesaving psychedelic therapy that brings healing to a community in urgent need. THE POOL Dir. Ian Darling | Australia | 2024 | 95 min | International Premiere A spectacular cinematic portrait of the iconic Bondi Icebergs – the pool and the people who cherish it. THE LAST DIVE Dir. Cody Sheehy | USA | 2025 | 88 min | International Premiere A man with a troubled past finds an unlikely friendship with a manta ray, forming a quiet, redemptive bond in the depths of the ocean. NEVER GET BUSTED! Dirs. David Anthony Ngo, Stephen McCallum | USA, Australia, Philippines | 2025 | 105 min | International Premiere He was a highly decorated Texas narcotics officer until he turned on the police force by busting crooked cops and teaching drug users how to hide their stash. THE PROMISE Dir. Daan Veldhuizen | Netherlands | 2025 | 115 min | International Premiere A forgotten promise by the Netherlands for the independence of the Indigenous people of West Papua, has turned into the world's most neglected genocide. VIVIEN'S WILD RIDE Dir. Vivien Hillgrove | USA | 2025 | 87 min | International Premiere After a lifelong career in cinema, editor Vivien Hillgrove starts losing her sight, forcing her to reexamine past traumas and relationships, and to reinvent herself and her art. NUMAKAGE PUBLIC POOL Dir. Shingo Ota | Japan | 2025 | 84 min | International Premiere After more than 50 years, a community grieves the loss of its beloved swimming pool as it faces demolition to make way for urban development. Join Doc Edge in celebrating two decades of life unscripted. Book your tickets now and discover the power of documentary to inspire, challenge, and change the world. Full programme and tickets available at 2025 KEY FESTIVAL DATES & VENUES Industry: 30 June – 3 July, Grand Millennium Auckland Auckland: 25 June – 13 July, Bridgeway Cinema, The Capitol Cinema, SkyCity Theatre and Silo 6 Wellington: 16 – 27 July, The Roxy Cinema Christchurch: 16 – 27 July, Lumiere Cinemas, Christchurch Art Gallery, Tūranga Central Library, and the University of Canterbury Awards: 3 July, Grand Millennium Auckland Nationwide: 28 July – 24 August, The Virtual Cinema
Scoop
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Doc Edge Unveils Full Programme For Landmark 20th Anniversary Festival
Press Release – Doc Edge Festival This years festival boasts 32 world premieres and 20 international premieres, tackling themes of community, resilience, and the universal power of human connection. These films are bold, raw, and resonantreflecting the festivals 20-year legacy … The countdown has begun! The 20th Anniversary Oscar-qualifying Doc Edge Festival has officially launched its 2025 programme, now live and on sale at This milestone edition features an unmissable and genre-defying line-up of 49 feature films, 29 short films, and 12 immersive projects that expose, educate, and entertain. Spanning urgent global issues to powerful local voices, the festival runs from 25 June to 24 August, bringing thought-provoking, inspiring stories to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and nationwide via the Virtual Cinema. This year's festival boasts 32 world premieres and 20 international premieres, tackling themes of community, resilience, and the universal power of human connection. These films are bold, raw, and resonant—reflecting the festival's 20-year legacy of fearless storytelling. Joining the already announced premiere films are these standout titles: MANA MOANA MANA TANGATA Dirs. Toby Mills, Julian Arahanga | New Zealand | 90 mins | 2025 | World Premiere In this compelling film, the battle to save Māori fishing rights unfolds as a powerful tale of resilience and determination. NO TEARS ON THE FIELD Dir. Lisa Burd | New Zealand | 2025 | 90 min | World Premiere Set in Taranaki, the film follows four young women chasing big rugby dreams, capturing the grit, heart, and camaraderie of grassroots women's sport. THREE DAYS IN FEBRUARY Dir. Serena Stevenson | New Zealand | 74 min | 2025 | World Premiere Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Splore festival, this is a cinematic celebration of human connection through an intimate and often playful lens. A QUIET LOVE Dir. Garry Keane | Ireland | 2025 | 95 min | World Premiere Three Deaf couples share the stories of how they met and fell in love. Together, these cinematic love letters weave a rich tapestry of Deaf experience over a period of 70 years. FATAL WATCH Dirs. Mark Benjamin, Katie Carpenter | USA | 2025 | 88 min | International Premiere The film set on the high seas exposes the largely unseen world of fisheries observers, whose warnings about illegal fishing practices have resulted in fatal consequences for those sounding the alarm. IN WAVES AND WAR Dirs. Jon Shenk, Bonni Cohen | USA | 2024 | 108 min | International Premiere Three Navy SEALs find themselves at the cutting-edge of a different frontline: a lifesaving psychedelic therapy that brings healing to a community in urgent need. THE POOL Dir. Ian Darling | Australia | 2024 | 95 min | International Premiere A spectacular cinematic portrait of the iconic Bondi Icebergs – the pool and the people who cherish it. THE LAST DIVE Dir. Cody Sheehy | USA | 2025 | 88 min | International Premiere A man with a troubled past finds an unlikely friendship with a manta ray, forming a quiet, redemptive bond in the depths of the ocean. NEVER GET BUSTED! Dirs. David Anthony Ngo, Stephen McCallum | USA, Australia, Philippines | 2025 | 105 min | International Premiere He was a highly decorated Texas narcotics officer until he turned on the police force by busting crooked cops and teaching drug users how to hide their stash. THE PROMISE Dir. Daan Veldhuizen | Netherlands | 2025 | 115 min | International Premiere A forgotten promise by the Netherlands for the independence of the Indigenous people of West Papua, has turned into the world's most neglected genocide. VIVIEN'S WILD RIDE Dir. Vivien Hillgrove | USA | 2025 | 87 min | International Premiere After a lifelong career in cinema, editor Vivien Hillgrove starts losing her sight, forcing her to reexamine past traumas and relationships, and to reinvent herself and her art. NUMAKAGE PUBLIC POOL Dir. Shingo Ota | Japan | 2025 | 84 min | International Premiere After more than 50 years, a community grieves the loss of its beloved swimming pool as it faces demolition to make way for urban development. Join Doc Edge in celebrating two decades of life unscripted. Book your tickets now and discover the power of documentary to inspire, challenge, and change the world. Full programme and tickets available at
Scoop
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Doc Edge Unveils Full Programme For Landmark 20th Anniversary Festival
The countdown has begun! The 20th Anniversary Oscar-qualifying Doc Edge Festival has officially launched its 2025 programme, now live and on sale at This milestone edition features an unmissable and genre-defying line-up of 49 feature films, 29 short films, and 12 immersive projects that expose, educate, and entertain. Spanning urgent global issues to powerful local voices, the festival runs from 25 June to 24 August, bringing thought-provoking, inspiring stories to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and nationwide via the Virtual Cinema. This year's festival boasts 32 world premieres and 20 international premieres, tackling themes of community, resilience, and the universal power of human connection. These films are bold, raw, and resonant—reflecting the festival's 20-year legacy of fearless storytelling. Joining the already announced premiere films are these standout titles: MANA MOANA MANA TANGATA Dirs. Toby Mills, Julian Arahanga | New Zealand | 90 mins | 2025 | World Premiere In this compelling film, the battle to save Māori fishing rights unfolds as a powerful tale of resilience and determination. NO TEARS ON THE FIELD Dir. Lisa Burd | New Zealand | 2025 | 90 min | World Premiere Set in Taranaki, the film follows four young women chasing big rugby dreams, capturing the grit, heart, and camaraderie of grassroots women's sport. THREE DAYS IN FEBRUARY Dir. Serena Stevenson | New Zealand | 74 min | 2025 | World Premiere Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Splore festival, this is a cinematic celebration of human connection through an intimate and often playful lens. A QUIET LOVE Dir. Garry Keane | Ireland | 2025 | 95 min | World Premiere Three Deaf couples share the stories of how they met and fell in love. Together, these cinematic love letters weave a rich tapestry of Deaf experience over a period of 70 years.
