New Zealand will be getting its own indigenous creature feature with “Taniwha” which hails from filmmaker Libby Hakaraia. Ricardo Giraldo penned the script for the film which unfolds a millennia ago in Aotearoa (Māori name for New Zealand).
When their peaceful world is completely destroyed by a brutal tribe, devoted young couple Keiha and Waikura are chosen to lead the survivors to safety.
Soon, Keiha disregards his wife’s advice and veers away from the agreed destination – arriving in a strange yet seductive valley. Waikura soon becomes aware something otherworldly is tracking them.
The project, presented at the EFM earlier this year and again recently at Canada’s Frontières Market, is said to already be in the advanced development stage and will boast the participation of New Zealand’s legendary Wētā Workshop.
The film will include some of the now-extinct giant birds that populated the island, including the 2.6m tall flightless Moa, and the Poukai (aka. Haast’s eagle) with a 3-4m wingspan which had the capability to kill even an adult human.
Hakaraia says they are talking to Wētā about realising those as animatronics. Same goes for the taniwha itself, which is inspired by the Tuatara – the only living reptile of the Rhynchocephalia order.
The film aims to break away from the tired cliches of the ‘noble savage’ that various indigenous cultures are portrayed as on film. Hakaraia says:
“This is not a world of primitive people and their crafts, but of high arts and a culture integrated with nature: an authentic Polynesian paradise of peace and natural abundance. Like ‘Black Panther’s’ Wakanda, this is a world that hasn’t been seen before.”
She adds that the recent success of the “Predator” spin-off “Prey,” which showed a growing interest in Indigenous film voices, has inspired them. Tainui Stephens and Desray Armstrong will produce.
Source: Variety
