AUCKLAND (Pacific Scoop / Pacific Media Watch): As a 16-year-old, Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti was more interested in reading Aristotle than in chasing girls.
In the film about this remarkable achiever, he laughs as he says he doesn’t have time for them.
“People always say this and I really mean it, I don’t have the time,” he said.
Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti is the star of Pietra Brettkelly’s feature length documentary Māori Boy Genius.
The film documents Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti’s journey to the ivy league Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was accepted into an intensive summer programme at the age of 16.
Producer Joanna Paul told Pacific Scoop it was a friend who first introduced her to Ngaa Rauuiri Pumanawawhiti’s “extraordinary story”.
“He told me a little bit about Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti and about some of his outstanding qualities,” she said.
Doco possibility
Paul flew to meet Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti and his whanau to explore the possibility of documenting his story.
“A documentary really revolves around if a story is there,” she said.
Paul said meeting Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti and his family showed her that there was.
“I felt like I was in the presence of somebody who was and is extraordinary,” she said.
She said she knew this film needed an “extraordinary” director and so she approached Pietra Brettkelly.
“Filmmakers are storytellers and what you need is an exceptional storyteller to tell this story.
“Pietra is an award-winning New Zealand and international director,” she said.
Paul said Māori Boy Genius was originally a project for Māori Television and the channel worked on producing it for a year and a half.
Assumptions challenged
Paul said it was Brettkelly who decided to continue filming Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti after the initial documentary aired on Māori Television.
“Pietra was still filming because she thought there was a feature length,” she said.
Paul said this film would challenge assumptions people may have towards Māori.
“In a sense the naming of the film is a challenge to racism, to stereotypes,” she said.
“The more Europeans and other cultures get to see this film can only help to continue understanding.”
Paul said Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti’s success was “unprecedented”.
“He got an offer to co-author a paper with the head of his political unit at Yale and no undergrad has ever been offered that,” she said.
Documents heritage
The film not only documents Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti’s time at Yale but also his heritage and connection to his whanau.
The admiration and support from Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti’s whanau and community is evident in the film.
Ngaa Rauuiri Pumanawawhiti is clearly moved by their encouragement and calls them “my backbone”.
At an open forum after the screening of the documentary, audience members praised the film.
“I found it incredibly moving…I want everyone in New Zealand to see your movie,” said one filmgoer.
Brettkelly told the audience that Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti was currently studying law and politics at Victoria University, Wellington, and has plans to do postgraduate study overseas.
She also explained how Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti had grown since the film.
High expectations
“A year ago he had the naivety of youth and all the expectation placed on him since before birth…now he is coming into his own,” she said.
Brettkelly told the crowd that Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti said to her: “I’m not sure that politics is the way that I will lead.”
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“I think that is fantastic; he is starting to realise what he wants and not just the expectations of others,” she said.
Māori Boy Genius has already screened in Berlin, Sydney and New Zealand Film Festivals has been invited to screen in festivals in Norway and New York later in the year.
Jessi Mee is a final year journalism major on the Bachelor of Communication Studies programme at AUT University.
Jessi Mee
