Film puts reluctant Whangara on the map

By REBECCA WALSH

It's the sort of place they leave the doors open when they're out. Where they can yell to each other from their balconies and where strangers' cars are spotted as they come over the hill.

It's the sort of place where the road belongs to kids on bikes and where every home, no matter how weathered, has a breathtaking view of brilliant blue sea.

It's a place the local Ngati Konohi people want to keep just the way it is.

Whangara, a tiny settlement 25 minutes' drive north of Gisborne is about to sparkle under the international spotlight with the release of New Zealand film The Whale Rider.

The film, which is an adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's 1987 novel, is set and filmed in the East Coast community and premiered in Auckland last night. It is to be released nationwide on Thursday next week.

Last year it won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival and it is picked to become a local screen sensation on the scale of Once Were Warriors.

Already the small community, with a dozen homes, a marae and church, has been attracting extra attention. It's not necessarily unwanted - most of the locals feature in the movie and are among those who travelled by bus to the Auckland premiere - it's just they value their privacy.

Hone Taumaunu, who lives at Whangara and was the cultural adviser for the film, says any influx of tourists - and he's not sure there will be - will have to be carefully monitored. One possibility is introducing visitor times on particular days of the week at the marae.

"There are stringent rules needed for movement on to marae. Popping in is out. When you come to a marae it's not a place you jump over the fence and take photos," he says.

"There's also kids on bikes and our own privacy."

Down the road, neighbours Wikitoria Matete and Haereroa Gibson, who have seen our car come over the hill and whipped up scones with fresh cream and jam, have no doubt people will want to come and have a look. They say it could even be good for the area if it was "worked out properly" with Tourism Eastland but they are wary about being inundated with lots of tourists. They don't think any of the Ngati Konohi people would want to sell their beachside land to developers.

"We are very lucky here. I don't think we would exchange this for anything," Mrs Matete says from her deckchair.

The movie draws on the Maori legend of Paikea, the whale rider, whose descendants are said to live on the East Coast. Mr Taumaunu, the man in charge of overseeing every scene in the film to ensure its "cultural integrity and appropriateness", has no doubt about its international appeal, saying the storyline has "the guts to sustain itself".

"It has become in its own right a treasure, carrying its own spirituality and its own mana."

The experience lingers long in the memories of those at Whangara.

"The crew, the cast and the local people became a family. There was mutual respect and they came back when the film was finished and keep popping in and out ... " says Mr Taumaunu.

When the cameras rolled 14-year-old Normanda Whanarere admits she "felt like a movie star even though I was only on it a little bit".

Enjoying the last lazy days of the school holidays with her cousins, she likes to watch the expressions on the faces of those who visit Whangara.

"It's cool to see how surprised they are. That a little place like this could be on a movie."

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