Kerikeri film fundraiser focuses on Kiwi soldiers armed only with guitars

A scene from the award-winning documentary Soldiers Without Guns. Photo / supplied

An award-winning documentary about to screen in Kerikeri shows how Kiwi soldiers armed only with guitars, Māori culture and compassion helped end a bloody 10-year civil war.

Soldiers Without Guns, released in 2019, is the true story of New Zealand's peacekeeping mission on Bougainville, an island off Papua New Guinea where protests against environmental damage by mining company Rio Tinto, and the brutal response by security forces, escalated into a war that killed one-sixth of the population.

Fourteen international attempts to end the bloodshed failed until unarmed Kiwi troops were sent in to broker a peace agreement.

As well as showing up armed with guitars instead of guns, the New Zealand mission had a high proportion of female soldiers, who helped win over Bougainville's matrilineal society.

The documentary will screen on Saturday, November 14, at Cornerstone Church at the corner of Kerikeri Rd and the Heritage Bypass. A pot luck dinner will start at 6.30pm, followed by the film at 7.30pm.

A scene from the award-winning documentary Soldiers Without Guns. Photo / supplied

Alan Robinson, of Kaeo-Kerikeri Union Parish, said the screening was not just for entertainment and education, but also to raise money for a medical facility in Bangladesh.

The late New Zealand doctor Edric Baker started Kailakuri Health Centre for the poorest of the poor in 1996. It has more than 90 mostly local staff, who see about 120 outpatients each day and look after 40 inpatients.

Entry to the documentary evening is by pot luck plate and $10 koha ($5 for children), with all proceeds going to Kailakuri Health Centre.