The New Zealand International Film Festival is in its very last days at MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri, with the final four screenings happening on Sunday 27 August. Having watched Close to Vermeer earlier in the week I can recommend this as a great film (screening again tomorrow at 1pm). I’ll definitely be watching Kidnapped at 2:45pm. Based on the true 19th century story of a six-year old Jewish boy abducted by the Catholic Church in Italy, I’m really looking forward to this. Rounding out the film festival is The New Boy at 5:15pm and Fallen Leaves at 7:45pm. Hopefully you managed to get to your picks of the festival and have taken away some great experiences and memories.
It’s been lovely seeing the theatre bustling during the festival and we’ll certainly be doing that again next year, along with the French Film Festival. We offer a number of regular cinema programmes at the Century Theatre throughout the year. These include the National Theatre Live screenings, Art Beats, Met Opera and our Sunday Cinema. The upcoming schedule can be found on our website under What’s On, or come in and get information from one of our friendly Customer Service team. We’re always reviewing our cinema offering and may make some adjustments based on the level of interest shown by our audiences, budgets and/or to meet overall objectives for the museum. Please do keep letting us know what you think of what we offer.
Looking ahead we have some events coming up that are worth mentioning. If you haven’t managed to catch one of the free lunchtime concerts with Project Prima Volta, the last concert is on Wednesday 30 August from 12:15 – 12:45pm – come along to enjoy this free concert and show your support for Project Prima Volta. Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori runs from 11 – 17 September and we’ll offer some guided tours in te reo during this week, children’s activities and more to encourage and support this nationally important week. At the museum we’re aware that we need to do more in this space and actively focus on becoming more bilingual.
For J.R.R. Tolkien or Peter Jackson fans, we’re screening all three Lord of the Rings films on Sunday 17 September. This coincides (almost) with National Hobbit Day on the 22nd and acknowledges nearly 20 years since the release of Return of the King (the anniversary being in December this year). We’ll be holding a costume competition in association with this triple screening – details of this will be announced online, on our website and in various retailers around the region in the near future. As the films are all rated M, the competition will be run accordingly, and competitors must be at the screenings and in their costumes to win a prize. We’re working with local businesses to sponsor some great prizes and hope lots of you will enter, making it a fun day for everyone involved. This will be a marathon event, starting at 9:30am with an opportunity for those in costume to strut their stuff, and running through until 9:30pm. Accordingly there will be plenty of snacks available at the Century Theatre Bar and if possible we’re hoping to have some food vendors between the films.
There’s plenty to do and see at the museum – we hope to see you here sometime soon.
Published in the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper 26 August 2023 and written by Laura Vodanovich, Director at MTG Hawke’s Bay.
The New Zealand International Film Festival opened at MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri this week. Opening night, Anatomy of a Fall, explored a question of guilt and innocence, and the truth behind the death of husband and father, Samuel – did he fall or was he pushed? This film explores untidy relationships and family dynamics set again the backdrop of a courtroom. Sadly I couldn’t attend the opening night due to another commitment so I’m looking forward to seeing this on Sunday 13 August.
As always the film festival offers a rich array of films with a little bit of something for everyone. There are quite a number of documentary films this year, one of my favourite genres. Many are covering stories of individuals including: musicians, composers, politicians, scientists, artists and artisans. One such individual is local Hawke’s Bay farmer Bill Youren who championed freedom of speech, political ideals and looking for commonalities as a way to connect across cultures. Building Bridges: Bill Youren’s Vision of Peace tells the story of this extraordinary man who was ahead of his time. Youren became a champion for China in New Zealand and the artefacts he collection were on display at MTG in the Bring China Home exhibition.
Close to Vermeer is high on my must watch list. Following the backroom dramas, negotiations, discoveries and surprises in pulling together the world’s largest Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, I’m really looking forward to this film. Another documentary which looks fascinating is Beyond Utopia which explores harrowing stories of escape from North Korea and the challenges of resettling in a new homeland.
Alongside a raft of documentaries, there are also a smaller number of films based on true stories. The 19th Century abduction of a young Jewish boy by the Catholic Church is shared in Kidnapped, while Radical tells the story of an inspirational teacher fighting to keep children in school in Mexico. Reality covers the story of a part-time intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents on Russian interference in the 2016 American election and Saint Omer looks at the challenging and complex story of a mother accused of infanticide.
Alongside all these documentary and real life inspired films there are of course plenty of the expected creative, environmental, futuristic, coming of age, and romantic tales the film festivals serve up. Many film festival favourite actors and producers are included so check out the schedule to find your favourites. With so many films this year, 34 in total, most are only shown once – so make sure you get in to see your top picks. The festival runs through to 27 August and you can find information on the films and schedule on the MTG website or brochures are available at the museum and in many cafes around Napier, Hastings and Havelock North.
I’m certainly planning to see a fair few films this year and hope to see some of you there too.
Published in the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper 12 August 2023 and written by Laura Vodanovich, Director at MTG Hawke’s Bay.
Letter written by William Colenso to John Burtton along with huia feather
The Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust is fortunate to hold in its collection three items which are closely associated to both William Colenso and the now extinct huia bird. The first is a letter written by Colenso to John Burtton of Kumeroa, near Woodville, dated 17 July 1886. In the letter Colenso sincerely thanks him for his “kind note” which was hand-delivered to him by Burtton’s daughter. Within the folds of Burtton’s letter was carefully wrapped “a deformed huia’s bill”, which Colenso enthused was a “natural curiosity” further stating that he was “eager and would have much pleasure” in showing the beak at the next meeting of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute.
The second item is a booklet titled “A Description of the curiously-formed Bill of a Huia, (Heteralocha acutirostris), an endemic New Zealand Bird” written by William Colenso and published, along with a sketch of the curiosity in the “Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand”, Volume 19, 1886. When the booklet and letter (minus bill) were donated in 1962, enclosed within the folds of paper was a lone huia tail feather glistening iridescent blue-black and tipped with distinctive white.
Within days of receiving the letter and deformed beak Colenso had written an essay about the unusual find, and on 9 August 1886 read it (along with three other scientific papers) to an avid audience at the monthly meeting of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute. He aptly described the deformed female huia’s upper mandible as resembling a “gigantic corkscrew” which measured approximately 15 centimetres – three longer than usual. Near the end of the meeting Colenso was thanked for the rendition of his “valuable papers” as well as being warmly congratulated for recently receiving science’s ultimate honour – that of Fellow of the Royal Society conferred by Britain’s Royal Society.
Of all bird species in the world, the huia had one of the most pronounced distinct difference in bill shape. The female’s bill was long, thin and elegantly arched downward while the male’s was short and stout. This enabled each to assist the other in search for food. Particular delicacies were the fat juicy huhu grub and weta which they extracted from logs and trees. The male huia with his shorter bill would perforate the hard outer trunk, followed by the female who would insert her long curved bill into the hole made by her mate, thereby extracting the larva, which both shared.
Of all Tane’s (the God of Forest and Birds) children, the huia was the most sacred bird to Māori. Their tail feathers (each bird had twelve) were an extremely revered taonga and when worn, symbolised leadership and mana. In pre-European times, only rangatira /chiefs of noble rank and their whānau wore the distinguished tail feathers in their hair.
The Bush Advocate reported on 10 June 1890 that at a large hui in Wanganui, Kāwana Pitiroi Paipai, (Ngāti Ruaka hapū of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) a prominent rangatira was sitting to “receive company”. For the occasion, Paipai wore a magnificent korowai / cloak, made entirely of the green and gold feathers of the kerēru fastened at his shoulders with a shark’s tooth and his “cloud of iron-grey hair” was surmounted by the “precious white-tipped plumes of the sacred huia, the sign of chieftainship”. In his lap lay a magnificent pounamu mere.
Examples of wear proliferated in print. On 18 December 1845 Colenso recorded in his diary while visiting Parangarahu near Wellington that the huia was “so highly prized by Māori all over the Island for their handsome skins which they hang in their ears.” Other uses encountered was the wearing a tuft of huia feathers as a mau taringa / earring or as a headdress composed of huia skins.
An unusual use of the huia feather was reported by the Hawke’s Bay Herald on 21 June 1882 when Rēnata Kawepō entertained a large hui of both Māori and Pākehā at Omahu to celebrate the marriage of his adopted son, Wiremu te Muhanga Paratene (William Broughton) to Atiria Te Hauwaho. After the service it was noted that the wedding cake was “profusely ornamented with huia feathers”.
Pākehā quickly copied the Māori tradition of wearing huia feathers but alongside incorporated their bills into jewellery. At the last session of Parliament on 11 September 1882, the Hawke’s Bay Herald reported that a large number of Members of Parliament were wearing huia feathers in their hats. John Sheeham, Minister of Māori Affairs from 1877–1879 conceived the idea that the wearing of the feather would appropriately mark the “closing days of the session” so he procured a “quantity of huia feathers and distributed them amongst members for that purpose”.
And as late as 1901 (by which time the huia was almost extinct), Woodville jeweller S Boustein, had designed a gold-mounted engraved brooch with a miniature gold snake wound between the two portions of the female huia beak, as well as a gold-mounted huia bill pendant fastened to a watch chain. Both items were displayed in his shop window for the public to admire and contemplate purchasing.
As demand for feathers, skins, bills and taxidermy specimens grew the huias population plummeted causing some Māori and Pākehā to become concerned. During Colenso’s 1845 journey to Parangarahu he noted that a group of Māori had “living specimens of the elegant and rare bird the huia”. On 24 July 1874, Heta Matau from Pōrangahau wrote a letter to the Hawke’s Bay Times stating that local Māori had established a rāhui / protection order against the killing of the huia and furthermore it had been in place for the last four years but was seemingly disregarded.
Taylor White from Wimbleton was also anxious about the fate of the huia. In a letter published 4 April 1890 by the Hawke’s Bay Herald he stated “formerly there were numbers of a rare bird, the huia, here” and their birdsong “used to be sounding on all sides”. He feared the huias extinction “unless a haven or refuge is provided for them in Government Reserves”. Sadly, it was too late for the huia – official record considered the bird extinct by 1907. The last officially confirmed sighting was on 28 December 1907 when three huia were reportedly seen in the Tararua Ranges.
Currently at MTG Hawke’s Bay we are extremely privileged to have on display the exhibition Tāku Huia Kaimanawa by artist Fiona Pardington, featuring five large-scale photographs of the Museums Trust taxidermied huia and feathers – one of which is the Colenso feather featured above. We warmly invite you to visit, pause in front of the images and take time to contemplate, appreciate and be enveloped by the pure beauty of the now extinct huia.
Published in the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper on 5 August 2023 and written by Gail Pope, Social History Curator at MTG Hawke’s Bay.
MTG Hawkes Bay 