“The Convert ultimately represents a tremendous feat of reclamation, a Māori story told by a Māori director in the Māori language with a large Māori cast.”
Ankit Jhunjhunwala for The Playlist

Script to Screen is delighted to be presenting this special in-conversation with Lee Tamahori, one of New Zealand’s most successful and celebrated filmmakers. He is the director and co-writer of The Convert, a New Zealand & Australian feature film co-production starring Guy Pearce and Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, which had its world premiere at TIFF this month.

Lee Tamahori has an extraordinary body of work including Once Were Warriors, Mulholland Falls, Along Came A Spider, Die Another Day, and more recently Mahana aka The Patriach directing alongside Jitesh Mahana. Throughout his formidable career, Lee has continued to bring New Zealand stories to the international stage.

Paula Morris will moderate the discussion about The Convert, described at TIFF as a “Stunning, Sweeping & Action-Packed Historical Epic”. She will explore Lee’s approach to making the film, including story themes, ideology and past experiences that guided his decisions.

Tuesday 3rd October 2023
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
The Capitol Cinema, 610 Dominion Road, Balmoral, Auckland 1041

$5.75 (incl. GST) for sales via Humanitix to secure your seat.

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm - Optional socialising
After the TALK Script to Screen will provide pizza, and it's buy your own drinks.

ABOUT OUR PANEL

SPEAKER: Lee Tamahori (Ngāti Porou)

Beginning as a commercial artist and photographer, Lee Tamahori joined the New Zealand film industry in the late 1970s as a boom operator. He became an assistant director a decade later. Making international award-winning commercials for 10 years, he has also directed several TV series.

His big break as a director came with Once Were Warriors (1994). The film went on to outgross Jurassic Park on its New Zealand release, and won audiences, acclaim and awards around the world. Shot in a style that mixes gritty realism with bold use of colour, Once Were Warriors examined a world of domestic violence and gangs for an urban Māori family. The movie's unflinching depictions of the former matched Tamahori's desire for films that evoke a response: films that "make you reel out of the theatre and you have to go to a bar and have a drink."

Biography taken from IMDB and NZOnScreen.

Photo credit: Kirsty Griffin

MODERATOR: Paula Morris (MNZM, Associate Professor, English and Drama Director, Master of Creative Writing)

Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Whātua) is an award-winning Auckland fiction writer and essayist. She writes on film for the site KoreaSeen, and directs the Master of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. She is the editor of the new anthology Hiwa: Contemporary Māori Short Stories.

Photo Credit: Colleen Maria Lenihan

This Script to Screen TALK is made possible thanks to generous support from
New Zealand Film Commission, Foundation North, Images & Sound, White Studio s and The Capitol Cinema.