Husband and wife duo, Jacob and Melissa Powell consider, if it takes a village to raise a child, does it take a village to destroy one?
One of the big celebrations at the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival was the world premiere of a Waru. And what’s not to celebrate? Before now, only two Māori women have directed feature films: Ramai Hayward directed 1972's To Love a Māori and Merata Mita directed Mauri in 1988 and now we have Waru with not only one but eight Māori women directors. The end result is a feature film of eight sequences centered around the tangi of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver. Husband and wife duo, Jacob and Melissa Powell, kick off Relative Opinions, a series of conversational art reviews between whanau. Warning: for those who haven't seen Waru, this korero contains some spoilers!
Correction: in this discussion, Paula Jones is credited with directing the short, Tapu. This is incorrect. Paula's short film is called Mere.
The chance to see Māori voices and female Māori voices that are strong and unified is pretty fantastic.
Waru
Auckland | Wellington | Christchurch | Dunedin
