Tearepa kahi biography

Tearepa Kahi's Muru is not a retelling of history but a response to a century of pain. Inspired by the 2007 New Zealand antiterrorism raids, the film centres on a mosaic of characters involved in the police's manhunt for activist and artist Tāme Iti, who is falsely suspected of leading paramilitary training camps. But Kahi makes a point to remind viewers that this wasn't the first attack on Tūhoe land, with a title card stating a similar incursion occurred in 1916. Doing so gives Muru a mythic quality, as it aims to reframe a history of violence and restore power to the people of Tūhoe in a unique blend of rage, soul, action, fiction, and truth.

During their recent promotional tour across Australia, I spoke with director Tearepa Kahi and producer Tāme Iti (who also portrays himself) about the consultation they received from the community, their desire to tell this story on the big screen, and how they both knew the best person to play Tāme Iti was Tāme Iti. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

CONNOR DALTON: How did you two meet? What's the Tearepa and Tāme story?

TEAREPA KAHI: True story: my father was a jazz fusion drummer down in Christchurch, where he met Papa Tāme, and my father-in-law is a good friend of Papa Tāme. So there's a familial connection.

TĀME ITI: Yeah, and I think it's really good — well, particularly for me — because that helped me too because I only work with people that I trust, share those stories to people that I can trust, [and people] that can make things happen. And, I guess, it's a story that needs to be told. And having people like Tearepa and others with him, they bring the magic and put it together like gravy. 

KAHI: So we go back. We go back way beyond a film script.

DALTON: What made you both want to tell this story on the big screen?

ITI: There have been a couple of docu

Christchurch-raised Tearepa Kahi began acting and playing saxophone as a teen, then spent two years in a theatre troupe run by Jim Moriarty. Later he studied history and Māori at Auckland University, and acted in landmark te reo film The Māori Merchant of Venice (2002). After directing several award-winning short films he made Mt. Zion, the most successful Kiwi movie of 2012. Next came two big screen music documentaries: Moa-nominated hit Poi E: The Story of OurSong, and 2019's Herbs - Songs of Freedom. In 2022 Muru— his dramatisation of the 2007 Tūhoe police raids — was chosen to open the NZ International Film Festival. 

...Kahi serves it all up with obvious love, a quietly watchful pace and a sunbaked visual style. The result is a smart, finely-observed, heartfelt drama of good humour and decent tunes against an authentic local setting. Russell Baillie reviews movie Mt. Zion in The NZ Herald, 6 February 2013

New Zealand director

Tearepa Kahi (born 16 March 1978), also known as Te Arepa Kahi, is a New Zealand film director and former actor of Ngāti Paoa and Waikato Tainui descent. Kahi is best known for the 2013 drama Mt. Zion starring Stan Walker, and the Pātea Māori Club documentary Poi E: The Story of a Song (2016).

Biography

Kahi grew up in Christchurch, and is of Ngāti Paoa and Waikato Tainui descent. Kahi's father was a musician who toured with Billy TK. As a teenager, he spent two years as a part of a theatre troupe run by actor Jim Moriarty. Moving to his grandmother's house in Pukekohe, Kahi studied history and Māori at the University of Auckland. From 1999 to 2002, Kahi acted in minor roles on television shows including Shortland Street, Mataku and Aroha – Irikura, and in the Don Selwyn film The Maori Merchant of Venice (2002). Kahi's co-wrote the short film The Speaker with rapper Savage, which won the award for best short film at the Wairoa Māori Film Festival.

Kahi's debut wide release feature film Mt. Zion was one of the most successful New Zealand films of 2013. Kahi debuted as a television director in 2016, with the release of the Whakaata Māori historical drama series Kairākau (2016).

In 2016, Kahi released his second feature film, Poi E: The Story of a Song, a film documenting the story of the Pātea Māori Club, Dalvanius Prime and the creation of the 1984 hit Māori language single "Poi E". This was followed by a documentary of New Zealand reggae band Herbs in 2019.

In 2022, Kahi released Muru, a dramatisation of the 2007 New Zealand police raids.

Kahi is a member of the board of the New Zealand International Film Fes

Tearepa Kahi has already made a mark in the theatre as a reo-speaking Shakespearean actor, and as a writer and director of the documentary on Dalvanius and Patea’s Poi E anthem.A doco on Herbs as well.

Along the way, there’s also been his Mt. Zion movie, a fictional story entwining Pukekohe spud-picking as well as Stan Walker and his voice. And somehow there’s been room for making some short films, too, and lending a hand to a bunch of other TV and movie projects. Like Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

More recently, though, his energy and skills have gone into Muru, a movie (starring Cliff Curtis) which could have been a re-enactment of the police raids on Ngāi Tūhoe but which went down another path and became an “action-drama”. Muru, still showing in cinemas around the country, has now been chosen as New Zealand’s official Oscar submission for Best International Picture.

Here Tearepa and Dale are talking about what led him into all this storytelling. 

Kia ora, Tearepa. I understand that you have strong connections to Christchurch and to Pukekohe. But let’s hear a little more detail about your background.

Well, Tearepa is a Rātana name. It was the name of Rātana’s eldest son. But I should start with my grandmother. Her name was Rahera Kahupua Kahi — she was a Wikiriwhi Tamihana from Kaiaua, Ngāti Pāoa.

Her brother was healed by Rātana and so all the whānau became followers. My father, George Tearoha Kahi, was what we call a jazz fusion drummer. He met Jimi Hendrix and the Mahavishnu Orchestra on vinyl at the local record store and left Pukekohe, hitting the road as a drummer with his jazz fusion band and Billy TK Sr.

Naming me Te Arepa as his firstborn was a way of sending a mihi out to his mother. Even though literally it means “the beginning”, what it really says is: “Mum, I miss you. Mum, I love you.”

It gave me an incredible connection to my kuia and Pukekohe even th