July 7th, 2015
THE PRICE OF PEACE, a powerfully moving documentary by investigative journalist Kim Webby is having its World Premiere in the New Zealand International Film Festival on July 19.
The film tells the story of the 170 years of intensely troubled relationship between the Crown and Ngāi Tūhoe, through the prism of prominent activist Tame Iti and his family.
Tame Iti is New Zealand’s best-known political activist and a man accused of running military style training camps in a remote part of New Zealand. He is also a man of peace, a loving father and grandfather, a kaumatua of his Ngāi Tūhoe tribe, an artist, a performer, who has spent his life advocating for Māori rights.
THE PRICE OF PEACE shows how Iti’s life changed forever on October 15, 2007. In the dead of night, heavily armed police in military style uniform raided his home and the homes of many others in what became known as the infamous “terror raids.”
For the next six years he fought to clear his name and the name of his Tūhoe people. The film follows Iti through the Court system, through his jail sentence, and is with him on his return home.
The film places the “terror raids” and subsequent events in the context of history, from the confiscations and scorched earth raids of the 1860s right up to the signing of the historic Deed of Settlement in 2013 and the Crown’s formal apology in 2014.
For filmmaker Kim Webby, this film began when she made an hour-long documentary for Māori Television, October 15, which won the Grand Prize at the 2011 Wairoa Māori Film Festival and then screened in Tahiti at the Pacific International Documentary Film Festival (FIFO).
In Tahiti, the judges and the audience all had one question: what happens next? So, as soon as she arrived back, she started filming the pōwhiri for the Urewera Four about to go on trial the next day. And she kept on filming for three more years.
From the NZIFF programme: “Kim Webby’s background in investigative journalism is put to riveting use in this documentary about Tame Iti and the Urewera Four, taking a criminal case of national interest to explore a greater social issue.”
THE PRICE OF PEACE is directed by Kim Webby, produced by Christina Milligan, Roger Grant and Webby through production company Conbrio Media Ltd. Director of photography is Jos Wheeler, editor Cushla Dillon.
Made in association with New Zealand On Air and Māori Television with funding assistance from Te Kotahi a Tūhoe and the New Zealand Film Commission
Screening in Auckland on Sunday 19 July 1:00pm and Wednesday 22 July 1:45pm Sky City Theatre.
Screening in Wellington Tuesday 4 August 6:15pm and Wednesday 5 August 1:30pm Soundings Theatre Te Papa.
Screening dates for other centres TBA.