Ngati

A drama of Maori and Pakeha families, Ngati shows how people in a Maori community cope with personal and public crises which threaten to disrupt their lives and traditional ways. Ngati is set in the tiny Maori community of Kapua on the East Cape in 1948. Change is in the air; the old freezing works, the district’s main employer, is clearly on the brink of closure. The town’s concern is equally focused on Ropata, the twelve year old son of Iwi and Hine, who is very ill. Iwi places more faith in the healing powers of the tohunga than in the local Pakeha doctor Paul Bennett. A young Australian, Greg Shaw, visits Dr Bennett and his wife Sam. As he becomes involved in the different ways Maori and Pakeha face crisis in their everyday life, and death, he suddenly discovers he has stronger ties to the community than he expected. —NZ Film Archive