Short film colonisation collection features Tūhoe tale

We Are Still Here. Photo / Whakaata Māori

We Are Still Here is a unique collaboration between Australian and Aotearoa filmmakers and arrives in cinemas across the country tomorrow.

It’s a series of eight short films that focus on the impact of 250 years of colonisation through the lens of first nation peoples, Māori, Aborigine and Pasifika. It’s been shown at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival, the Whānau Mārama (the NZ International Film Festival), and Melbourne International Film Festival.

One of those short films is in te reo Māori and was inspired by the Tūhoe haka Te Pūru, which was composed during the battle of Orākau in 1864.

Actress Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Porou), who played the young version of Dame Whina Cooper in the film Whina, says Te Pūru “tugs at the heartstrings” as the themes from the film, much like the other films, echo realities for Māori, First Nation and Indigenous populations worldwide.

Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne. Photo / Facebook

“Being a part of Te Pūru, realising that that stuff had happened to our tūpuna, was quite heartbreaking,” she says.

Ngatai-Melbourne plays Te Mauniko, the daughter of Te Whenuanui. She says the cast, of Tūhoe uri, sent a buzz throughout the filming process. And even though she grew up on her Ngāti Porou side, she embraced the challenge to speak in the Tūhoe dialect for the film.

“But that’s not a new thing to Māori especially if you’re a kaihaka. We love to perform. It was an emotional one, too, because it was real… we were playing real-life characters.”

She gives credit to the other short films too, saying they’re just as important as Te Pūru.

“I was watching the other films, I couldn’t help but wonder ‘Which is the best one?’ I think that they’re all equally amazing. They all equally hold special purākau that speak to colonisation but they also speak to ‘We Are Still Here.’”