By Lisa Sloan
Kereama Ngatai is a small-town boy with big city ambitions.
The Matakana Island resident has graduated with a diploma from Auckland's South Seas school of film and television. He now plans through film to show New Zealand just how interesting small towns can be.
Kereama, 20, has a passion for life in communities. He enjoys all aspects of film from editing and lighting to production but his ultimate goal is to make documentaries about people in small towns and their everyday lives.
"I'd much rather be out there filming the community," he said. "It's a whole different way of life."
Kereama is the second Tauranga-born graduate of the one-year diploma at South Seas. He is fluent in Te Reo Maori and has been working at Radio Moana AM for the last three months.
He applied for the course at South Seas on the suggestion of an aunty.
He says it has been a lot of hard work. "It's basically a three-year course crammed into a year. You work very long hours from 6 in the morning to late at night."
Haare Williams, course leader of the film and television diploma, said Kereama's fluency in the Maori language would be an asset.
"The school is very receptive to the idea of students who are fluent in Te Reo. He's one of the best we have had in the language," he said.
He believes Kereama has a lot of potential. "Options will open up naturally to him," he said.
Despite his abilities Kereama knows how hard it would be to break into the industry. "You have to be really top-notch to make it," he said.
His goal would be to see his documentaries shown on mainstream television. "I'd love to see more Maori programming on TVNZ."
Kereama plans to stay in radio while looking for a job in film or television.
Small-town interest leads to big ideas
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