Taiao: A Nonverbal Documentary Experience

The Outlook for Someday and Te & Kaponga Pictures present
TAIAO

WHAKATAUKĪ
Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitu te whenua
As people disappear from sight, the land remains

TAIAO explores how we as a multicultural people use Aotearoa’s natural environment through a nonverbal, documentary experience; comparing the wonders of our taiao, our nature, and the advent of man. Communicating the consequences of our industries and our reckoning with colonisation non-verbally allows us to glimpse a sustainable, equitable future, while acknowledging an unsustainable present.

With the content of a nature documentary, edited like a music video, and composed using the soundscape of native taonga pūōro alongside electronic synths, TAIAO’s experimental approach distills the cinematic experience into its pure form while allowing the audience to make up their own minds on what it has to say. Without using words, how can we communicate our historical, industrial, and future relationship with our environment?

TAIAO was selected and commissioned through Someday Stories Series 5, an annual collection of six sustainability focused short films made by Aotearoa’s emerging filmmakers. Someday Stories is produced by Connected Media with support from NZ On Air, Te Māngai Pāho, the New Zealand Film Commission in association with their Screen Partners; Stuff, Māori Television and RNZ. Produced through the Tauranga Moana based film company Kaponga Pictures, the film itself explores sustainability and colonisation through the lens of Tauranga expression the wider impacts on Aotearoa at large.

TAIAO will be released to the public online through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Vimeo on Wednesday 15th September, which also happens to be Māori Language week.

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