Poi E: The Story of Our Song 2016

Directed by Tearepa Kahi

NZIFF 2016 opens with the World Premiere screenings of the Kiwi feel-good movie of the year: Tearepa Kahi’s richly researched celebration of Dalvanius Prime and the many rivers that flowed into the making of ‘Poi E’.

Session dates and venues to be announced
96 minutes DCP
G
cert

Rent

Director/Screenplay

Producers

Alexander Behse
,
Reikura Kahi
,
Tearepa Kahi

Co-producer

Tuteri Dal Rangihaeata

Photography

Fred Renata
,
Jos Wheeler

Editors

Tearepa Kahi
,
Francis Glenday

Sound

Dick Reade
,
Colleen Brennan

With

Dalvanius Prime
,
Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi
,
Pātea Māori Club
,
Barletta Prime
,
Taika Waititi
,
Stan Walker
,
the Topp Twins
,
Maaka Pōhatu

Declaration of interest

The staff and trustees of NZIFF congratulate fellow trustee Tearepa Kahi on his awesome film.

We open NZIFF 2016 with a joyful rendition of our national anthem – the one you can dance to. As irresistible as the song it celebrates, Tearepa Kahi’s documentary explores the many tributaries that flowed into the mash-up of pop music, traditional waiata and bop that first took New Zealand by storm in 1984.

Dalvanius Prime, the man who made it happen, enjoyed an international R&B career in the 70s. He returned from Sydney to Taranaki to nurse his dying mother and stayed to embrace his culture and Te Reo Māori. Collaboration with singer Prince Tui Teka led him to Māori language composer Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi. Together they composed ‘Poi E’: in this film you will hear the first ever recording, made soon after. 

Adding embellishments that did not please his co-composer but impressed her mokopuna, he persuaded his Taranaki whānau, the Patea Māori Club, to perform it. A man on a mission, chihuahuas under each arm, he pulled together a diverse and talented bunch of collaborators to record the song and crowdfund a brilliant music video that, amongst other things, captured the vitality and pride of his hometown facing hard times.

The film, told largely in Dalvanius’ own words, is brimful of music and frank and funny testimony from numerous participants in the song’s richly peopled history. Taking a lesson from the man himself, Kahi draws the next generation into the story, ably assisted by Taika Waititi, who provides Stan Walker, aged 25, with essential information about what life was like before ‘Poi E’.