Matua

THE FILM

Manaaki Roberts, a young Māori teacher, returns to his family estate in Māngere to deal with his mother’s recent passing. Staying on after the tangi, he contemplates selling the house and is approached by two strangers - an older Māori man, and a Māori teen - to provide Te Reo lessons. Manaaki reluctantly accepts, unaware that he is about to uncover the secrets hidden within his mother’s life.

MATUA explores themes of connection and reconciliation with family and culture through its deeply moving narrative and complex characters. This film takes core Māori ideas around philosophy, education, history and whakapapa and intertwines them with a heartfelt tale of a Māori man reconciling with his past.

THE TEAM

Our crew covers the spectrum from friends and family with little to no film experience who just want to help out, to ambitious, emerging filmmakers still in film school or fresh out, to seasoned industry professionals. Together we have all the necessary talent, determination, equipment and skills to create a powerful, film festival-quality short film.

Meet the core team:

Kaitiaki Rodger - Director

Kaitiaki is a Māori film student studying his Screen Production Masters, specialising in Directing. He has worked mostly on short film projects and hopes to use his experience to build up a career in either the camera and/ or lighting departments.

Cameron Broadhurst - Producer

Cameron is a filmmaker, writer and teacher based in Auckland, who has worked in journalism, film and television production and Media Education, and holds a Masters in Screen Production from the University of Auckland. He has written and directed a number of his own short films in recent years as well as assisting and co-producing others. He regularly consults in developing screen projects of all kinds.

Ray Larsen - Associate Producer

Ray studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and Auckland University. He has always been fascinated with an individual's relationship with society, and preoccupied with the meeting point of internal and external realities. 

THE BUDGET

Your contribution is essential for us in completing production, helping to cover location costs, art department costs, as well as the post-production costs of editing, music and sound mixing. It will also help us pay minimum fair wages to our professional crew, and feed everyone on set generously donating their time to help make this film possible. 

THANK YOU

Thank you for taking the time to check out our project. You can help us by making a pledge now! We would also really appreciate it if you could help spread the word by sharing this page. Boosted is all-or-nothing so we need to reach our goal of $2,500 NZD by 1 October, 2020 in order to receive any of the pledged funds to make this film! Your credit card won't be charged unless we raise the entire amount. 

If you have any problems with the payment system, or have questions about the film, please email us at matuaproduction@gmail.com. To stay updated, you can follow us on Facebook at @matuaproduction

P.S.

All New Zealand based donors qualify for a 33% tax credit on their donations from the IRD! Receipts will be provided by The Arts Foundation at the end of the campaign.

All donors will receive a thank you in the credits, as well as eternal gratitude from us!