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School Libraries in Aotearoa New Zealand — survey reports
Visit page- School libraries in Aotearoa New Zealand — 2023
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Visit page- Evidence-based practice and why it matters
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Stories
Visit page- One teacher’s journey towards building a class reading culture
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- Inquiry into inquiry: The Marlborough Inquiry Project
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Professional development through online learning
Visit page- Learning about raising readers at Sylvia Park School
- Learning to develop a responsive secondary school library collection
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Reading engagement
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My reading superhero
Visit page- Di-Kun — Mrs Dawson, reading superhero
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- Supporting reading and literacy
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Creating a reading community
Visit page- A school reading community
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Visit page- Genres and forms in children's and young adult (YA) fiction
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Strategies to engage students as readers
Visit page- Teachers Creating Readers Framework and examples of practice
- Cards and chatterbox to discover your reading identity
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Summer reading
Visit page- Take a community approach to summer reading
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Schools — how to support students' summer reading
Visit page- Plan a summer reading initiative
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Visit page- Borrowing from us
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School loan coordinators — how to use our lending service
Visit page- School loan coordinator role
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Visit page- Resources for learning
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Visit page- Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
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Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
Visit page- Arrival and settlement of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand
- First encounters and early colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi | the Treaty of Waitangi — and its history
- Colonisation/immigration to Aotearoa and Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa | the NZ Wars
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1850 to 1950
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1950 to 2000
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- ‘Connected’ instructional series — resources
- Storybook app: Turikatuku — Te wahine taki wairua
- Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Services to Schools
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Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
Visit page- About Te Kupenga online
- Waka sail
- Drawn to te ao Māori
- Young emissaries
- Letter from Eruera
- Meeting Hongi Hika
- Another view of Waitangi
- Whaling in the bay
- Bird trade
- Moko of Kawepō
- Hākari
- Transition in Tahiti
- Eight-hour-day champion
- Signing the Treaty
- First New Zealand atlas
- Two Māori in Vienna
- He wahine toa
- He hononga tāngaengae
- Selling a farming dream
- ‘I shall not die’
- Wāhine Māori, whenua Māori
- Telegraphic tweets
- Actions at Parihaka
- Farm of the south
- He whakaahua rangatira
- A Moriori group
- Last of the laughing owls
- A taxing imposition
- Kiriki hori
- Peace on the waters
- Taking Māori to the world
- Digging for livelihoods
- Champion of women in medicine
- Collective might
- ‘It’s just hell here’
- Safe sex pioneer
- Sāmoa mō Sāmoa!
- The draw of Haining Street
- Aotearoa from the air
- Auswanderung
- A Japanese songbook
- Custom meets colonisation
- Health in body and mind
- Gift of fire
- Koroua, mokopuna
- Mean money
- From Tokelau to Wellington
- Whetu — style icon
- ‘Educate to Liberate’
- The dawn raids
- ‘Not one more acre’
- Toitū te whenua
- Cambodian journeys
- A volcanic career
- All-white All Blacks
- Halt the racist tour
- Going anti-nuclear
- Ngā taonga reo Māori
- New breath for ancient voices
- He kiriata nui: Māori on screen
- Somali Pacific star
- Colour, movement and music
- For generations to come
- We Are Beneficiaries
- Tools for primary source analysis
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
Tools for primary source analysis
Visit page- Explore a whakaahua | photo
- Explore a mahi toi | artwork
- Explore a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Explore a taputapu/taonga | object
- Explore a mahere | map
- Analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Analyse a mahere | map
- Critically analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Critically analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Critically analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Critically analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Critically analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Critically analyse a mahere | map
- Kohinga taunaki matua | A place to collect your evidence
- Using our primary source analysis tools in the classroom
- Social sciences topic starters for Years 0–3
- The New Zealand Wars
- Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
Visit page- Our service and what you can borrow
- How to borrow from us
- Register your school to use the Print Disabilities Service
- Request physical resources from the Print Disabilities Service
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Services to Schools
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Teaching tools and resource guides
Visit page- Curiosity cards for inquiry
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
Curiosity cards for inquiry
Visit page- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
Visit page- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (CC0001)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (CC0002)
- The 'Crook Cook' statue (CC0003)
- Burning the forest (CC0004)
- A New Zealand 1951 fifty pound note (CC0005)
- Map drawn by Tuki te Terenui Whare Pirau (CC0006)
- 2017 Women’s March (CC0007)
- Te Rangitopeora (CC0008)
- The bicycle and women's suffrage (CC0009)
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (CC0010)
- Mere Ruiha Hakaraia/Mary Bevan’s signature on the 1893 Suffrage Petition (CC0011)
- Girls can do anything (CC0012)
- 1893 anti-suffrage cartoon (CC0013)
- Frances Parker’s Women’s Social and Political Union Medal for Valour (CC0014)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (CC0015)
- Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
Visit page- Navigation (TMCC1)
- Waka hourua (TMCC2)
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (TMCC3)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (TMCC4)
- Matau rino (TMCC5)
- Whakapapa (TMCC6)
- 'Crook Cook' statue (TMCC7)
- Silver fern (TMCC8)
- Huia (TMCC9)
- Hāngi (TMCC10)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (TMCC11)
- Kahu kiwi (TMCC12)
- Hikoi (TMCC13)
- Whales (TMCC14)
- Dawn raids (TMCC15)
- Cross-cultural identity (TMCC16)
- Multiculturalism (TMCC17)
- Kauri dieback disease (TMCC18)
- Blank curiosity card template
- Fertile questions
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- Inquiry exemplars and templates
- Guides for exploring children's and YA literature
- Explore He Tohu with your students
- World War 1 (WW1) resources
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Visit page- Weeding your school library collection — video
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- Te whakahiratanga a nga whare pukapuka
- The importance of libraries
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- Creating a school-wide reading culture
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- Reading Together at Ohaeawai School
- Digital citizenship — managing your technology use
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- Using the 'Crook Cook' curiosity card
- 'How is it activism to ride a bicycle?' Exploring the 'women cyclists' curiosity card
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Visit page- Voyaging through Aotearoa New Zealand histories
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Voyaging through Aotearoa New Zealand histories
Visit page- Pacific Ocean
- Pacific navigation
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Resources and activities
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- About Tuia Mātauranga
He kiriata nui: Māori on screen
Māori stories, as told by Pākeha, have been brought to our screens from the early days of Aotearoa NZ cinema. However, Māori had to fight to bring their own stories and experiences to film. Find out more, and explore our collections and curated resources.
Read a story about Māori bringing their stories to the screen
In 2013, producer Robin Scholes, founding partner of the production company Communicado, donated four binders of material to the Turnbull Library. They contained a pictorial history of the making and marketing of Once Were Warriors (1994), the debut feature of director Lee Tamahori (Ngāti Porou), which Communicado had produced. The collection takes us behind the scenes to reveal the creative and practical forces behind the film.
Māori stories were being brought to the screens of Aotearoa from the early days of our national cinema, including Hinemoa (1914) and Rewi’s Last Stand (1925). But Māori had to fight to direct their own stories. Merata Mita (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngai Te Rangi; 1942–2010), whose work included Patu! (1983) and Mauri (1988), and Barry Barclay (Ngāti Apa; 1944–2008), who directed Ngāti (1987), were two key trailblazers who became champions of indigenous filmmakers both at home and abroad.
In 1994, Once Were Warriors, with a screenplay adapted by Riwia Brown (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui) from the 1990 bestselling novel of the same name by Alan Duff (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), broke box-office records and met with critical success worldwide. Over the years, an increasing diversity of Māori voices, from Taika Waititi’s wildly popular Boy (2010) to Waru (2017), in which a single story is told from the perspectives of eight wāhine Māori directors, have continued to pump the heart of our national cinema.
The contents of Communicado’s binders not only form a unique record of a major New Zealand film, but also create a comprehensive picture of how a movie was — and largely still is — made. The collection documents the people involved, from key players to extras, along with the creative processes, from location scouting and working with actors to costume design and make-up tests. The images, taken by Kerry Brown and Ann Shelton, are striking in themselves.
The image above is from the iconic opening moments of Once Were Warriors, in which cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh’s camera pulls out from a pastoral utopia on a billboard to show South Auckland, the motorway and high fences, and Beth Heke (Rena Owen, Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi) pushing a supermarket trolley. It is Beth who carries us through this story and offers the film’s sense of hope. The film also starred Temuera Morrison (Te Arawa) and Cliff Curtis (Ngāti Hauiti, Te Arawa).
Tamahori’s cinematic voice is distinctive. A mixture of realism and 1990s stylisation, Once Were Warriors gave a grim depiction of the plight of many urban Māori, disconnected from their tūrangawaewae and suffering from the impact of colonisation. The film, with its portrayals of domestic violence, poverty, rape and suicide, generated considerable controversy within Māoridom itself.
Story written by: Catherine Bisley
Copyright: Turnbull Endowment Trust
Photo of crew filming Once Were Warriors
About this photo
Nig Heke (Julian Arahanga) becomes a patched member of the fictional Toa gang. In this production still, the crew films from the back of a ute while a gang car is mounted on a low-loader rig towed behind.
Find out more
Explore the Alexander Turnbull Library collections further: Once Were Warriors.
National Library blog has this post also written by Catherine Bisley: The big picture.
Papers Past has Māori film.
Topic Explorer has Māori creators, leaders and heroes — which includes the DigitalNZ story Māori and the stage and screen.
Want to share, print or reuse one of our images? Read the guidelines for reusing Alexander Turnbull Library images.
Curriculum links
The content on this page and the resources it links to can be used across te ao tangata | social sciences, English and other learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum. They can be used for Tikanga ā-Iwi within Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.
Find out more about these curricula on Tāhūrangi.
- Resources for learning
- Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
- Arrival and settlement of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand
- First encounters and early colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi | the Treaty of Waitangi — and its history
- Colonisation/immigration to Aotearoa and Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa | the NZ Wars
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1850 to 1950
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1950 to 2000
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific
- ‘Connected’ instructional series — resources
- Storybook app: Turikatuku — Te wahine taki wairua
- Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
- Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
- About Te Kupenga online
- Waka sail
- Drawn to te ao Māori
- Young emissaries
- Letter from Eruera
- Meeting Hongi Hika
- Another view of Waitangi
- Whaling in the bay
- Bird trade
- Moko of Kawepō
- Hākari
- Transition in Tahiti
- Eight-hour-day champion
- Signing the Treaty
- First New Zealand atlas
- Two Māori in Vienna
- He wahine toa
- He hononga tāngaengae
- Selling a farming dream
- ‘I shall not die’
- Wāhine Māori, whenua Māori
- Telegraphic tweets
- Actions at Parihaka
- Farm of the south
- He whakaahua rangatira
- A Moriori group
- Last of the laughing owls
- A taxing imposition
- Kiriki hori
- Peace on the waters
- Taking Māori to the world
- Digging for livelihoods
- Champion of women in medicine
- Collective might
- ‘It’s just hell here’
- Safe sex pioneer
- Sāmoa mō Sāmoa!
- The draw of Haining Street
- Aotearoa from the air
- Auswanderung
- A Japanese songbook
- Custom meets colonisation
- Health in body and mind
- Gift of fire
- Koroua, mokopuna
- Mean money
- From Tokelau to Wellington
- Whetu — style icon
- ‘Educate to Liberate’
- The dawn raids
- ‘Not one more acre’
- Toitū te whenua
- Cambodian journeys
- A volcanic career
- All-white All Blacks
- Halt the racist tour
- Going anti-nuclear
- Ngā taonga reo Māori
- New breath for ancient voices
- He kiriata nui: Māori on screen
- Somali Pacific star
- Colour, movement and music
- For generations to come
- We Are Beneficiaries
- Tools for primary source analysis
- Explore a whakaahua | photo
- Explore a mahi toi | artwork
- Explore a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Explore a taputapu/taonga | object
- Explore a mahere | map
- Analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Analyse a mahere | map
- Critically analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Critically analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Critically analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Critically analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Critically analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Critically analyse a mahere | map
- Kohinga taunaki matua | A place to collect your evidence
- Using our primary source analysis tools in the classroom
- Social sciences topic starters for Years 0–3
- The New Zealand Wars
- Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (CC0001)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (CC0002)
- The 'Crook Cook' statue (CC0003)
- Burning the forest (CC0004)
- A New Zealand 1951 fifty pound note (CC0005)
- Map drawn by Tuki te Terenui Whare Pirau (CC0006)
- 2017 Women’s March (CC0007)
- Te Rangitopeora (CC0008)
- The bicycle and women's suffrage (CC0009)
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (CC0010)
- Mere Ruiha Hakaraia/Mary Bevan’s signature on the 1893 Suffrage Petition (CC0011)
- Girls can do anything (CC0012)
- 1893 anti-suffrage cartoon (CC0013)
- Frances Parker’s Women’s Social and Political Union Medal for Valour (CC0014)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (CC0015)
- Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
- Navigation (TMCC1)
- Waka hourua (TMCC2)
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (TMCC3)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (TMCC4)
- Matau rino (TMCC5)
- Whakapapa (TMCC6)
- 'Crook Cook' statue (TMCC7)
- Silver fern (TMCC8)
- Huia (TMCC9)
- Hāngi (TMCC10)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (TMCC11)
- Kahu kiwi (TMCC12)
- Hikoi (TMCC13)
- Whales (TMCC14)
- Dawn raids (TMCC15)
- Cross-cultural identity (TMCC16)
- Multiculturalism (TMCC17)
- Kauri dieback disease (TMCC18)
- Blank curiosity card template
- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Fertile questions
- Primary sources — how to use them
- Inquiry exemplars and templates
- Guides for exploring children's and YA literature
- Explore He Tohu with your students
- World War 1 (WW1) resources
- Topic Explorer guide
- EPIC guide
- AnyQuestions guide
- DigitalNZ guide
- Papers Past guide
- Index New Zealand (INNZ) guide
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
- Videos