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The Spinoff
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
How Kōkā put a Matariki twist on the classic road movie
Alex Casey talks to Kōkā director Kath Akuhata-Brown about crafting an intergenerational road movie like no other. On a frantic search for a last minute location on the East Cape, Kath Akuhata-Brown (Ngāti Porou) was driving around aimlessly until a silhouette stopped her dead in their tracks – a single towering pōhutakawa tree atop a giant hill the middle of a field. 'We were standing on the road, and we looked at each other and said 'that's what we need'.' She knocked on the door of the nearest property, introduced herself, and started talking about the details of the film she was making. But, as it turns out, the guy who answered the door just had one big question for her. 'He looked at me and goes 'are you Harry's sister?' I said yes and he said 'OK, you can use it'.' As it turns out, Akuhata-Brown's brother had helped out on the farm years ago, and the man was happy to return the favour between whānau – by welcoming a film crew of over 100 people onto his farm with little notice. This is the kind of generosity that Akuhata-Brown loves to tell about the place she was raised. 'I've always wanted people to know how much I loved the land that I grew up on, how much I loved being Ngāti Porou,' she says. It was that instinct to tell the story of her land that sowed the seed for Kōkā over two decades ago. Following a kuia named Hamo (Hinetu Dell), who picks up a wayward 20-something Jo (Darneen Christian) on her journey up the country, the film is an intergenerational road trip that traverses everywhere from boarded-up small towns to lush green bush to dripping caves. Akuhata-Brown first had the idea at film school in Amsterdam in 2003, but says life and work got in the way. 'Kōkā was always on the back burner though, always waiting,' she laughs. Exploring the experience of different generations of wahine was always at the heart of Kōkā, Akuhata-Brown explains. 'We are very much a matrilineal community and society, so it just made sense.' She met Hinetu Dell on another film set, and knew immediately she was her Hamo (it also helped, in classic Aotearoa fashion, that Dell's mother had been Akuhata-Brown's childhood kapa haka teacher). Darneen Christian was a new mum when she was cast, and the production provided a 'korowai of support' in her own trailer and an onset nanny. It was also essential to Akuhata-Brown that Kōkā's story unfurls on the road, bringing to mind other New Zealand road movies like Goodbye Pork Pie and the upcoming Holy Days. 'I think the road movie genre shows a deeper connection to the land,' she says. 'I wanted the journey to tap into the collective desire we have in Aotearoa for finding those connections between each other, and protecting our land.' It also taps into another shared truth about New Zealanders: 'we are all travellers, for goodness sake – to go anywhere around here you have to fly for 20 hours.' Kōkā began filming in Pōneke, then travelled everywhere from Harihari to Blenheim, Picton to East Cape, to Lane Street studios in Upper Hutt. 'Moving an entire unit across the country was epic, but there was no room for anyone to forget their schedules,' says Akuhata-Brown. Being on location and in the elements also came with its fair share of challenges: 'on the second day of filming, it absolutely persisted down with rain. Everybody's cellphones got drenched and died, all the technology was in trouble because of all the water coming in.' Despite all the hurdles that have arisen over the two decades Kōkā has been taking shape, Akuhata-Brown says the timing has worked out perfectly – the film is released today around the country, right in time for Matariki. 'This is a cosmic journey as well as a physical journey. Our actors are moving across the landscape under the gaze of Matariki and let's just say Matariki has a very significant moment in the film.' Akuhata-Brown also hopes that Kōkā allows people to reflect on the current political environment in Aotearoa, and the importance of celebrating te ao Māori. 'We'll give value to our language and our rangatahi and our elders. I hope people who come to the film walk away having had an experience but also understanding the value of specificity and the value of being Māori,' she says. 'No one wants to be told anything anymore. But if you take people on an emotional journey, they might just come out the other side thinking differently.'
RNZ News
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Sir Ian Mune in End of the Golden Weather at new Court Theatre
culture arts 1:07 pm today The brand new long awaited home for The Court Theatre officially opens Saturday May 3 in Otautahi Christchurch. It is an impressive $61.4 million purpose-built home for New Zealand's largest professional theatre company. The new space features a 379 seat main auditorium and a second 150 seat theatre. It's a significant moment for the city: this major production house has been in temporary lodgings in a shed in Addington since the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. Centre mainstage for the opening production is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most beloved actors, directors and writers for theatre, film and television. Sir Ian Mune. He was knighted in 2024 in recognition of a 60-year career. Involved in our professional theatre since 1964, Sir Ian gained further attention when he co-wrote seminal film hits Goodbye Pork Pie and Sleeping Dogs in the 1970s, and went on to direct Came a Hot Friday in the 1980s, to name just a few iconic works. It's a work he adapted from stage to screen as a director in 1992 that sees him on the new Court stage. Sir Ian Mune is narrator in End of the Golden Weather, Bruce Mason's classic solo play, adapted as a full cast version by Raymond Hawthorne. Another great senior theatre figure, Hawthorne died on the fifth of April. End of the Golden Weather is a coming of age story imbrued with nostalgia for a New Zealand childhood summer spent at the beach. That idyll plays out as the realities of the outside world and approaching adulthood start to seep in. Culture 101's Mark Amery spoke with Sir Ian Mune during rehearsals this week and began with a reading of the play's famous opening scene setter.
