After screening at festivals last year, the coming-of-age movie, Maori Boy Genius is touring New Zealand with screenings at the Raglan Old School Arts Centre on the 15th and 16th of June. It tells the story of Ngaa Rauuira, a possible future leader as he takes his first steps toward breaking the mould, railing against his people’s horrifying statistics. This is the classic story of poor small town boy makes good, the greatest story ever told, that of rags to riches.
“What if some shrewd filmmaker had recognized Barack Obama’s boyhood promise and documented the birth of his political consciousness as a teen? In Maori Boy Genius documaker Pietra Brettkelly may well be profiling New Zealand’s future Prime Minister”. VARIETY
At 4 Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti learnt English.
At 12 he began his first university degree.
At 14 he googled political studies and up came Yale University.
At 16 Ngaa Rauuira is one of a rare breed, studying at this Ivy League College.
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’ SARAH WATT, SUNDAY STAR TIMES, 5 MAY 2013 – 4 stars
Ngaa was born in the small coastal New Zealand town of Otaki. He has lived with his retired grandparents (his grandfather worked on the railways and his grandmother a prison nurse) since the age of eight (customarily the eldest child in a family is given to their grandparents) while Ngaa’s five siblings were bought up by his parents.
As she was preparing to have her sixth child the mother in our film, Maakarita, tells us a story. Sixteen years previously she was giving birth to her first child, a boy. And there wasn’t just one omen with his birth, but two. Firstly he was born “in the caul” with the amnio covering his face, and when the old ladies went outside to announce his birth there was a double rainbow on the horizon.
He was named Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti, the energy around where lightning strikes.
He learned to memorise through the Maori tradition of singing and story telling. His first language is Maori and he learnt English at four years old. At 12 he began his first university degree; at 14 he googled “international politics” and “education” and came up with Yale University. He applied to the Yale summer semester programme at age 15 and was accepted at the age of 16.
Ngaa says: “Maori didn’t have a written language. So we learn songs, we learn dances about everything like fishing. How can you go fishing if you don’t know where the fish are? A song will tell us how to look for the fish and we would sing it as we went fishing.”
Ngaa posseses spirituality and charisma. Among his people he is being hailed as a new leader for this confused and troubled age, a visionary who can directly tap into the wisdom of his ancestors.
He’s also a goofy, gangling 16 year-old Maori boy who loves to hang out with his mates; watching his best friend Riwai – already a dad at 17 – practise his old school popping-and-locking dance moves, eating meat pies in his friend Daniel’s car.
“But his real interest is human rights,” his mother Maakarita says: “He’s been talking that way since he was 10.”
One of Ngaa’s favourite quotes: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Ngaa’s name is based on an old tribal (Tuhoe) saying: “He uira ki te rangi he tauira ki te whenua….Like lightning in the sky, here is an example on earth.”
But it is Ngaa’s grandmother who gently notes: “He’s a Matakite, a wiseman. But really he’s just a boy.”
MAORI BOY GENIUS profiles this future leader as he takes his first steps toward breaking the mould, railing against his people’s horrifying statistics. This is the classic story of poor small town boy makes good, the greatest story ever told, that of rags to riches.
Ngaa was born in the small coastal New Zealand town of Otaki. He has lived with his retired grandparents (his grandfather worked on the railways and his grandmother a prison nurse) since the age of eight (customarily the eldest child in a family is given to their grandparents) while Ngaa’s five siblings were bought up by his parents.
Ngaa Rauuira’s closest and most spiritually rich relationship is with his grandfather. His grandfather is sad when he admits he has lost the language that was beaten out of those of his generation when they spoke it in the school playgrounds. The culture was being crushed. But in the 1970s people marched on Parliament, insisting the culture and language be protected.
Some say Ngaa Rauuira is one of the greatest results of this renaissance, a product of a unique full immersion indigenous education system that aims to assist New Zealand into a bicultural society.
But expectations are high of Ngaa Rauuira; he is a young man with the world resting on his shoulders. His family of eight faces his US$35,000 Yale bill; his tribe expects success in kapa haka performance competitions AND in ‘saving’ them; he cannot fail.
Because of Ngaa Rauuira’s age he must be chaperoned at Yale University. Although he lives with his grandparents, it is his father Adrian, thunderstruck by the wonderment of his son’s talents, that is his companion. Both leave their family behind, Adrian’s wife Maakarita having just given birth to their sixth child three days before departure, the whole family having sacrificed so much for this boy’s education.
As we watch all these influences on Ngaa Rauuira, we see him begin to make his own decisions and take his first political steps. On his return from Yale Ngaa Rauuira takes up a megaphone and leads national protest. He is then asked to stand as a Member of Parliament. The political party have no idea how young he is. Just how inspiring.
Within the year, MAORI BOY GENIUS reveals the empowerment Ngaa Rauuira got not just from those around him but an international educational institution. This truly is Volume 1, the 7Up of the making of a political leader.
MAORI BOY GENIUS, Documentary – Exempt. 90 mins
http://www.maoriboygenius.com
Raglan Old School Arts Centre, Stewart St, Raglan
Saturday, 15 June, 2013 8:00pm
Sunday, 16 June, 2013 4.30pm