Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited CEO Natasha Meleisea with Tangata Pai producer Kerry Warkia at the Hawai’i International Film Festival Awards in Honolulu.
By Michelle Curran
Strategic Communications, Pasifika TV
The resounding success of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi show Chief of War and Te Reo Māori series Tangata Pai, is evidence of the desire for story sovereignty across the Pacific.
At the recent Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF45) Awards and HIFILM Conference in Honolulu, Chief of War writers and producers, along with the Aotearoa New Zealand-based Tangata Pai creators and cast attended the festival to celebrate and promote Pacific storytellers and creatives.
With a connection to Kanaka Maoli and Te Moana Nui, the Tangata Pai contingent felt at home on arrival in Honolulu, where they took part in the Awards evening, a Q&A session at the screening of the eight one-hour episodes, and a HIFILM Conference panel session about narrative sovereignty in television.
The acknowledgment of the groundbreaking series Tangata Pai by HIFF45, and making its international premiere, is a proud moment for the team, producer Kerry Warkia says.
While of Papua New Guinea/Scottish heritage, Kerry’s writer and director partner Kiel McNaughton has whakapapa to Taranaki iwi and Parihaka, as do the four Māori leads, an intentional and vital component to the series, filmed in Taranaki, she adds.
Set in Taranaki, using 30 percent Te Reo Māori, Tangata Pai follows five people as they navigate a land occupation in Aotearoa – an activist musician, a conflicted cop, a grieving nurse, a struggling father and a torn politician.
Each is fighting for justice, family and identity, and as tensions rise and a terrorist attack shatters their world, they must confront the cost of being good people in a country still reckoning with its past.
Creators and cast attend the international premiere of Tangata Pai in Honolulu, as part of HIFF45.
Kerry, whose body of work includes other Pacific and Māori stories such as Waru and Vai, says Tangata Pai is the first one-hour drama series she has produced.
“Tangata Pai is groundbreaking as it is the first one-hour narrative drama series, which has been funded by any of our funding bodies (New Zealand On Air and Te Mangai Paho) and commissioned by Warner Brothers Discovery (ThreeNow), who had never before commissioned anything that was 30 percent Te Reo Māori,” Kerry says.
“For it to be a part of my body of work and Kiel McNaughton’s body of work is absolutely huge and a milestone in our careers.
“There are lots of other layers to it…Kiel had always wanted to make a story from where he is from, and it is also our partnering, through Mereana Hond, with Te Atiawa iwi and Ngāti Te Whiti hapū at the beginning of this kaupapa.
“In terms of their involvement in the series, their blessing to make the series and their participation in supporting the series cannot be underestimated – it was vital.”
Working with iwi, and with Mereana as poutiaki reo and a kāhui reo team led by Ruakere Hond, there is an authentic application of the Taranaki mita and a thorough and meaningful approach to te reo within the dialogue.
Kerry adds the whole series is a highlight for her, particularly having the work reach as wide an audience as possible and interact with it from wherever they are at on their life journey and connect to the story.
In 2022 at HIFF42, Kerry received the Leanne K Ferrer Trailblazer Award presented by Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), given to a creative content luminary of Pacific descent.
She credits the festival for being a meeting place for Pacific Islanders, with a pou in the ground, enabling creatives to come together and share indigenous work, talk story and be part of a big community.
“HIFF is a festival that I love and will keep coming back to and will keep supporting.
“Pacific Islanders in Communications is such a champion for Pacific Island stories from Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia and Rapanui … it is really working hard to connect the Pacific regions together through storytelling.”
Tangata Pai creators and cast following their panel about story sovereignty at the HIFILM Conference, in Honolulu.
She adds it is important for creatives to be connected to different organisations around the Pacific, to uplift storytellers and create opportunities in the industry.
There are many more stories to be told, and following Tangata Pai, Kerry began working on a documentary, Sukundimi Walks Before Me, based in the Sepik region of her homeland, Papua New Guinea.
It looks at the communities who are being threatened by a proposed copper-gold mine being built at the Sepik River headwaters.
She is currently applying to festivals to screen the new documentary.
Tangata Pai made its international premiere at HIFF45 and can be seen in Aotearoa on ThreeNow.
