Kiaora, its Paora and Gaylene here and we are back on pozible.. We would like to say a big thank you to all of you who have been supporters and made this film a reality . 

We are really excited because are our little film that has taken 3 years from the bus to the big screen will have its World Premiere through the New Zealand Film Festival at Soundings theatre, Te Papa in Wellington tomorrow 28th July 2012.  The Tatarakihi (Children) themselves will be striding the red carpet. We are happy and grateful that our little film will now travel New Zealand and then the world. 

Though the film is looking beautiful on screen and is complete its still owes money for the finishing costs which totals $15,000. There has been a tremendous amount of good will so far towards this project from the grace and favor of a lot of film facilities and film workers. 

Anybody out there who has seen and loved the film this is your opportunity to contribute. He iti, he pounamu (Although it may be small it is precious beyond measure), Every little bit will count and help to keep a roof over the head of those creative people  who have given long generous hours in faith and good will. 

Please note donations we are requesting is not to pay back the core creative team which is Paora, Gaylene and Janine. 

TATARAKIHI – THE CHILDREN OF PARIHAKA

"A True Story of War, Passive Resistance, and The Children who will never forget"

TATARAKIHI – THE CHILDREN OF PARIHAKA tells the journey undertaken by children who are the survivors of Parihaka. The children retrace the steps of their Parihaka ancestors who in the late 1800s were forcibly removed from their peaceful village in Taranaki and incarcerated for indefinite periods without trial over a thirty-year period in South Island prisons. The children’s bus journey through New Zealand weaves a delicate tapestry of narration, poetry, song and archival image to tell a haunting story that spans five generations.

“Just as night is the bringer of day, so to is death and struggle the bringer of life”

(Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi)

"While it recounts days of darkness, Tatarakihi – The Children Of Parihaka is imbued with a sense of restoration and hope, enabling a continued dialogue for understanding and mutual respect of both Māori and Pākehā in the New Zealand we know today. This film will also provide reflection to other indigenous nations that memory of the ancient world is important within the modern context that we now find ourselves in.”

This film is dedicated to the memory of all who have carried the kaupapa of passive resistance taught by Te Whiti O Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi.

You can visit the film on the NZ film festival website and Tatarakihi page, http://goo.gl/XkIGr as well as make bookings. In the interests of getting as many people as possible to watch it and to discover the story of Parihaka, please forward an email to your friends (and spread it via facebook and twitter if you’re into that) to encourage them to come to one of these Festival screenings: In addition to the world Premiere, Tatarakihi – The Children of Parihaka can also be seen in lunchtime screenings at the City Gallery, Wellington on August 3, Auckland - Sunday August 5, 3.30pm at SkyCity Theatre, Dunedin - Tuesday August 7, 6:15 p.m and Wednesday August 8 at Rialto Cinema. Christchurch HOYTS - Friday 17 August, 1:45pm, HOYTS - Sunday 19 August, 2:30pm New Plymouth – to be scheduled 

Providing there is a positive response to the film we will plan for a cinema release in New Zealand after the film has completed its circuit with the festival. 

This link is the one we ask you to spread around. And here’s the press release announcing our World Premiere and other NZ Film Festival screenings :http://goo.gl/RGrH8. New Zealand Heralds film critic - Peter Calder recommends Tatarakihi - The children of Parihaka along with other international documentaries in this years NZFF line up..http://www.nzherald.co.nz/movies/news/article.cfm?c_id=200&objectid=10819362

ABOUT THE FILM

In 2009, a group of about 30 children, aged from five to 12, from the school Te Kura Kaupapa o Tamarongo in the South Taranaki town of Opunake, set off on a journey to learn about the struggles of their ancestors. All are descendants of Parihaka, the peaceful village established in the 1860s by Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi and destroyed in 1881 by the Government-backed Armed Constabulary.

Accompanied by parents and teachers, including Ngapera Moeahu and Maata Wharehoka and senior spokesman (Whaikōrero) Rukutai Watene, the children spent almost two weeks travelling by bus from Parihaka to Wellington and then around the South Island. They visited the places the men from Parihaka, who were essentially political prisoners, were held captive in over a 19-year period in the late 19th Century. They saw the buildings, walls and roads hewn out of stone by their ancestors, and went inside the caves and cells they lived in. The children met the descendants of the local iwi who supported the prisoners and were given heartfelt welcomes onto the marae of the south.

Parihaka community filmmaker Paora Joseph was also on board the bus. With cameras borrowed from his New Plymouth workplace, WAVES Youth Health and Development Centre, a trainee sound recordist in the form of one of the WAVES students and with some of the children also operating cameras, he filmed every step, every milestone of the trip.

Filmmaker Gaylene Preston, who has a longstanding connection with the people of Parihaka and was working with Joseph on archival video interviews for them, brought her skills, resources and experience to the project as executive producer.

After the trip, Joseph and his wife Janine Martin, an artist who is co-director of the film, conducted workshops with the children to process their experience. The children made artworks, wrote poetry and sang songs. After that, they recorded the children’s songs and poetry readings in a recording studio, which gave rise to the idea of using the children’s own voices and observations as the narration for the film.

BACKGROUND TO PARIHAKA

Parihaka is a site of immense historical, cultural and political importance. The events that took place in and around Parihaka, particularly from about 1860 to 1900, have affected the political, cultural and spiritual dynamics of the entire country.

Founded during the punitive years of mass confiscation and dispossession of Māori from their lands, by 1870 it had become the largest Māori village in the country. Two figures, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi led the Parihaka movement. Both men were committed to non-violent action in order to resist the invasion of their estates and to protect Māori independence.

Te Whiti and Tohu established monthly meetings at Parihaka on the 18th and 19^th day of every month to which Māori and Pākehā leaders were invited to participate in discussions about the injustices and to strategise resistance to land grabbing and assimilation. The ‘18^th’ became a consistent institution for the Parihaka movement, as it recalled the date of the start of the first war in nearby Waitara, which began on March 18, 1860.

Passive resistance began with a prominent Taranaki woman by the name of Keeta who along with other women sought to remove survey pegs from their own land in Waitara. Following the land wars in Taranaki in 1860 and subsequent land confiscations, ploughing up surveyed areas, building fences across roads was a means of passive resistance that was asserted in North and South Taranaki. Te Whiti and Tohu established a community around the kaupapa of passive resistance and ensured that all actions were non-violent. A philosophy of peace for all humanity was inspired and a strategy of non-violent action was put in place. The Ploughmen and Fencers did not resist arrest and as each group was dragged away by government forces, another group took its place.

The Native Minister, John Bryce, described Parihaka as "that headquarters of fanaticism and disaffection" and subsequently Parliament passed legislation enabling the Government to hold the Parihaka protesters indefinitely and without trial. By September 1880, hundreds of men and youths had been exiled to South Island prisons where they were forced to build the infrastructure of cities like Dunedin.

Yet, the worst was still to come. In 1881, the Armed Constabulary marched on Parihaka and systematically destroyed their homes and crops then slaughtered their cattle, pigs and horses. Women and girls were raped, leading to an outbreak of syphilis in the community. It took the armed forces two months to destroy the complex.

The kaupapa of peace and nonviolent action in the assertion of Rangatiratanga (Sovereignty) and Kaitiakitanga (Rightful Guardianship), first articulated by Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, has endured to the present day at Parihaka. Five generations later, the Morehu (survivors) continue to live and die in accordance with the philosophy as established by their leaders Te Whiti and Tohu.The descendants of Mahatma Gandhi, Daisaku Ikeda, and Martin Luther King continue a relationship with Parihaka in what has become an ongoing global peace cooperative forum. Te Whiti and Tohu have been recognized by their contemporaries as two of the foremost world leaders of passive resistance, nonviolent action and world peace.