Film-maker disowns producer's cut

Barry Barclay

Film-maker Barry Barclay has had his name removed from the credits of one of his documentaries for its television premiere this weekend because he and the film's main participants regard the version as offensive.

The film, The Kaipara Affair, which screens on TV One on Saturday, is a 70-minute version of the two-hour-plus documentary that screened in the New Zealand Film Festival last year.

But Barclay says the recut, which was done without his knowledge by the film's producer, Don Selwyn, is "hurtful and abusive" and that New Zealand On Air, the primary financer of the film, "should have some checks and balances" to stop film-makers' work being changed.

The Kaipara Affair examines overfishing of the Northland harbour of the title but frames it as the story of Maori and Pakeha in the small community of Tinopai uniting in a common cause - to establish a rahui to protect the harbour.

But Barclay says the television edit effectively rewrites the storyline, marginalising the women and turning the film into "an easily dismissed rant by grumpy men about a resource management problem".

Raewyn McDonald, who Barry describes as "a co-architect of the uprising in which a small town roared" but who has disappeared almost entirely from the television cut, says she feels "hurt and betrayed" by the edit.

"It's pretty horrible for me," she says. "It makes me look like a middle-aged white racist and the whole thrust of the thing - that it was about the community - has gone."

At Barclay's request, Selwyn has removed his name from the credits and the television version will be credited as being "edited by He Taonga Films", which is Selwyn's production company.

Barclay has written to the Prime Minister, the board of New Zealand On Air and, more recently, Maori Party MPs, giving the background to the recut.

He is asking for a freeze on New Zealand On Air's production funding until its protocols are sorted out.

"New Zealand On Air has sought to depict it as a breakdown of communication between the producer and director, but it's a systemic breakdown.

"You have to spend the funds on the project that was submitted. This kind of abuse doesn't happen if you have your protocols sorted out."