A Small Life

We could not have made this film, this way, without the freedom given to us by the Screen Innovation Production Fund. We hope this film is a unique vision of our own culture, our own country, our own landscape.

– Writer/Director Michael Heath

Its theme is universal but it's given a specifically Māori inflection by the commanding presence, lyrics, singing and acting of Mahinarangi Tocker. A Small Life is a relatively short film but it's every bit as large as life.

– Lawrence McDonald, in the 2000 Wellington Film Festival programme

(Michael) Heath's deeply moving film about a Māori mother's relationship with her dying child won eight major awards at the festival ... Anyone who had seen the film could not but be swept away by its force and its almost operatic fusion of sound, music, visuals and dialogue.

– Jahanzaib Khan, in Pakistani newspaper Dawn, 29 December 2002