Wellywood Woman

Dana Rotberg Cushla Parekowhai and I went to previews for Dana Rotberg's new feature White Lies/Tuakiri Huna –  Cush in Auckland and me down here in Wellington. And the film excited us. White Lies/Tuakiri Huna,  described as 'a story about the nature of identity: those who deny it and those who strive to protect it', comes from  Medicine Woman , a novella by Witi Ihimaera, who also wrote Whale Rider. ( Witi is Cushla's cousin. Witi's father, Tom Smiler, and Cush's grandmother, Pani Turangi, were raised in the same household in Manutuke.) Dana wrote, in the book that accompanies the film, that after she read  Medicine Woman – ...Paraiti, the medicine woman, was a stubborn presence who refused to leave. I felt that was a clear sign that the story...was speaking to me from places other than where the original work had come from. Places that belonged to my intimate family history and my most unresolved conflicts as a person in the world. It was a call from th