Rewi Rapana returns to the small country town of Te Mata after his family has left the district. His arrival rekindles old tensions as well as renewing family ties. He is seeking an identity and a permanent place to call home yet desperately hiding a secret from his past. Oddly enough there is one person with whom he finds peace of mind. She is an old woman known as Kara. A special relationship develops between Rewi, Kara and Kara’s great granddaughter Awatea.
Direction
Merata Mita's first feature—patient, unflinching, revolutionary.
Acting
Anzac Wallace carries impossible weight in every stillness.
Cinematography
Raglan landscapes as character—beautiful and menacing.
Director
Merata Mita
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
First feature directed by a Māori woman, made when NZ Film Commission barely funded Māori stories. Mita had to fight for every frame.
Eva Rickard was a real-life activist and Tainui leader; her casting as Kara brings layers of authentic matriarchal authority impossible to fabricate.
US
NZ
