NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

The powerful Maori film taking on child abuse in NZ

Siena Yates
By Siena Yates
TimeOut·
18 Oct, 2017 08:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

'WARU' premieres in cinemas on 19th October. YouTube / vendettafilmsnz1

When Kerry Warkia's 7-year-old got an infected scratch on his back, she immediately took him to hospital, but she wasn't expecting to be told off for it.

"[The nurse] just rained down on me like: 'This is disgusting, how can a mother treat her child like this, how could you have let this happen? You're not fit to be a mother'," Warkia recalls.

"In that moment I kind of thought to myself, wow, we really do carry this."

As a non-Pakeha mother, Warkia carries the weight of New Zealand's past with child abuse, and the conversations around race that are often a part of those cases.

That's part of the reason she and her husband - producer, director and actor Kiel McNaughton - set out to make Waru through their production company Brown Sugar.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Waru is a confronting, difficult, heartbreaking and yet empowering story about a young boy named Waru who has died as a result of abuse.

The other catalyst for its creation was the Nia Glassie abuse case and the resulting conversations; many of which centred on race.

Husband and wife duo Kiel McNaughton and Kerry Warkia of Brown Sugar Productions. Photo / Supplied
Husband and wife duo Kiel McNaughton and Kerry Warkia of Brown Sugar Productions. Photo / Supplied

Between them, Warkia and McNaughton share Papua New Guinean, Scottish, Maori, Chinese and Pakeha backgrounds.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"We just kind of thought, 'Man, this is a really heavy thing to carry for a country, for the amount of abuse that happens to our children'. But it was also a really heavy thing to carry as a brown mother, as brown parents," Warkia says.

She still carries it now. Just last year, her son had an asthma attack and at the hospital, a doctor asked her son questions like, "do you live in a filthy house? Is your house damp? Does anyone in your family smoke?".

And then, when he continued to answer "no" the doctor asked; "Did your mum give you lollies to lie to me when I asked you these questions?"

"And I was sitting right there," says Warkia. "And I just thought: Holy haka, this is next level."

"But the other part of me says, 'Think of what they see every day, what they have to do'. So I understand that there's all kinds of reasons why these things happen and I think with this movie, that's what we wanted to get across; a child is not abused just because of one thing...there are a whole heap of issues that surround it."

That's why Waru doesn't just tell one story one way. It's told via eight short films each made by a different female Maori director, including Briar Grace-Smith, Ainsley Gardiner, Renae Maihi, Paula Jones and Awanui Simich-Pene.

A still from Briar Grace-Smith's Waru short film Charm. Photo / Supplied
A still from Briar Grace-Smith's Waru short film Charm. Photo / Supplied

Their stories centre on female Maori characters in different parts of the country at exactly the same time of day.

At 10am, one woman runs a busy marae kitchen catering for Waru's tangi, a solo mum deals with WINZ as she struggles to find enough food for her kids, a young girl confronts her abuser head-on, two sisters risk everything to save more kids from the same fate.

They're powerful stories about what will be hugely controversial topics, but Waru dives beyond the surface on which these conversations have been had in the past. It looks at how substance abuse, financial issues, spirituality, tradition and more all play a part in abuse and the aftermath.

"Originally Kiel was going to direct, but as we were writing, we knew that ... we needed to have Maori women telling these stories because we haven't heard from them in such a long time," says Warkia.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Each director was given parameters to work within; each story had to be about a Maori woman at the same time of day and each short film had to be done in a single 10-minute shot.

"The idea of real-time in one shot means you sit with those people for 10 minutes. When you're working within those 10 minutes, every minute, every second counts toward moving the story forward. It helps us to be really present in that story," she says.

A still from Awanui Simich-Pene's Waru short film 'Titty and Bash'. Photo / Supplied
A still from Awanui Simich-Pene's Waru short film 'Titty and Bash'. Photo / Supplied

"Each of these [characters], just in that 10 minutes of their day, they make a choice, and whatever choice they make...it's going have a ripple effect and the choice they're making is a choice that takes them in another direction that is for the greater good...a direction that is for more understanding and striving to work together."

But Waru isn't about happy endings. It's confronting as hell, even though we never see the boy Waru, or find out any details about his death.

So is Warkia nervous about the country seeing it when it releases today?

"Definitely," she says. "But also I'm really proud of this work and I stand by it 100 per cent. I'm incredibly proud that we are contributing to the conversation that has to be had," she says.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"All the children who have been abused or died from abuse, whatever makeup they are, in New Zealand, they're all our kids and they still sit with us wherever we go, whatever we do and we have to do better."

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Entertainment

World

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM
New Zealand

NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

06 Jul 12:48 AM
Premium
Entertainment

Lights! Camera! But not enough action in a fading, worried Hollywood

06 Jul 12:00 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Entertainment

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM

He performed with his original bandmates for the first time in 20 years.

NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

06 Jul 12:48 AM
Premium
Lights! Camera! But not enough action in a fading, worried Hollywood

Lights! Camera! But not enough action in a fading, worried Hollywood

06 Jul 12:00 AM
Noel Edmonds to marry again: British TV star proposes in hot tub in NZ

Noel Edmonds to marry again: British TV star proposes in hot tub in NZ

05 Jul 09:00 PM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP