Report by Alistar Kata – Pacific Media Centre/Pacific Media Watch
AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Most audiences are used to seeing Wairere Tame Iti as the Māori activist, who most notably shot the Australian flag at a 2005 Waitangi Tribunal hearing, and recently when he was arrested as part of the 2007 anti-terrorism raids in Te Urewera.
But a new documentary entitled The Price of Peace goes beyond the surface into the world of Tame Iti, and takes a different approach to telling the story of the Tūhoe raids.
Award-winning director and co-producer Kim Webby says she wanted to show all sides of Tame Iti.
“I knew him differently. I knew him as a grandfather and as a father, as a marae committee chairman, you know, a leader in his community.”
The flag-shooting incident in 2005 … but this intimate documentary provides a wider context for race-relations in New Zealand. Image: ConbrioMedia
The film also addresses the themes of how the media portrayed Tame Iti himself, his court case and the painful impact on the wider Ngāi Tūhoe community.
One of three co-producers on the film, AUT University television lecturer Christina Milligan, says the commercialisation of our media industry is a major issue.
“Our mainstream media is getting whiter and whiter by the day and it’s almost like because we have Māori Television, we can now put all the Māori stories, indigenous stories over in that box and its taken care of and the government’s ticked that one off.”
On a wider scope, the film points towards the importance of reconciliation and the state of race relations in the country.
The film screens once more at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland, then tours around the country before airing on Māori Television on October 13.
Creative Commons Licence: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
