Moriori

This Feltex Award-winning documentary follows two grandchildren of the last full-blooded Moriori back to Rēkohu in the Chatham Islands, to rediscover their heritage. Charles and Margaret Solomon learn about 1000 years of Moriori settlement: Polynesian origins, tree carvings, and Pacifist beliefs tragically tested in 1835. Nine years before a book by Michael King and Barry Barclay's film The Feathers of Peace, this doco revised popular misconceptions about the Moriori. Wayne Tourell writes about here about directing the doco, while Moriori leader Maui Solomon argues that it helped launch a revival of Moriori culture.  

Our family and relations are the only living link with a people, a culture, that’s virtually disappeared.

– Charles Solomon

Key Cast & Crew

Mark White

Designer

William Southgate

Composer

Graham Smith

Cinematographer

Bill Saunders

Producer, Writer, Narrator

Bil Henderson

Editor

Wayne Tourell

Director