Documentaries
Black Pearl Ltd & Tawera Productions.
Tawera Productions and Black Pearl Ltd are two independent companies that come together to film people and their stories. Toby Mills (Ngāti Hinerangi) and Moana Maniapoto (Te Arawa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa) are indigenous filmmakers from New Zealand. Both individually and as a partnership, they tell stories through film using both Māori and English languages. Their works have won awards and screened in Canada, US, France, Finland and Australia. Toby's latest documentary 'Whetū Mārama: Bright Star' was globally acclaimed. The couple live in Muriwai Beach (Auckland) with their daughter Manawanui, who has her own acting portfolio.
This 7-part series explores the drama and challenges for Māori representing their tribes as they negotiate treaty settlements . Each episode explores the expectations facing negotiators up against a fully resourced, reluctant Crown and sometimes - the hostility of their own people.
26 mins
A disruptor, navigator, transformer and visionary, Moana Jackson was many things to many people. Towards the end of his battle with cancer, he sat down to talk about his life & groundbreaking work in Māori criminal justice and constitutional transformation.
47 mins
reform
This documentary examines an unusual Aotearoa first encounter: between Māori and Russians in 1820, when Fabian Bellingshausen visited Queen Charlotte Sound aboard the sloop the Vostok. The doco includes reenactments of crew diaries, and a visit to Russia to look at traded taonga and archive material.
52.09 mins
Ngā Toki Whakarururanga is a by-Māori, for-Māori collective whose job it is to advance and protect Māori interests in the trade space. In this explainer, Moana outlines the challenges facing Māori including the impacts on Māori rights, duties and responsibilities.
8.40 mins
When Moana was threatened with a law suit by a German company that had trademarked her name, she and Toby explored the wider issues of commercial exploitation of 'exotic' indigenous cultures by global companies in this feature documentary.
46 mins
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