Witi Ihimaera - White Lies

ANDREW BEATTY, VANESSA HURLEY, YOLANDER BARTHAMand ABBY COLLINS:For taking over at the last minute the design and production of the challenging make-up of this film. And making it wonderful.

HAYLEY ABBOTT:For trusting I knew my way and for saving me when I didn’t.

ADAM MARTIN:For the precision of your suggestions with dialogues of crucial historical and dramatic meaning.

PAUL SUTORIUS:For believing always that we had a beautiful film and for making it flourish in the editing room. For being a good human being.

JOHN PSATHAS:For creating intense, intelligent and emotional music; a bridge that takes the audience to a place where they become one and the same with each one of the characters. With that you brought a new layer of drama into the emotional texture of the film and imprinted a sacred dimension on the story of Paraiti, Maraea, Rebecca and her baby daughter with a refined balance of discretion and passion. For the blessing of your friendship.

RICHARD NUNNS:For the sacred beauty of your taonga puoro.

JAMES HAYDAY:You made a soundscape for this film in which each one of the locations has a voice, a story and a soul. For being up at 4 am on the top of a mountain in the bush of Ruatahuna, freezing cold, recording the first songs of the birds and the sounds of the river. You are a unique creative mind and a loyal colleague. For that you are a dear friend to me.

IMAGES AND SOUND:For always going the extra mile for this film.

EVERY PERSON IN THE CAST AND THE CREW OF THIS FILM:You went with me all the way, not always under easy circumstances, to finish every shooting day with the best possible result. No matter how complicated the challenges were, or the nature of the conflicts we all faced, you brought to the set the best of yourselves to make this film. Its beauty belongs to all of you.

JOHN MACDERMOTT:For being mi buen amigo, and for being a wise and constant source of integrity and goodness.

CAMERON BROADHURST:For your advice, your clarity and your work.

MICK SINCLAIR:For finding the key that unblocked something that can be beautiful.

My friends CLAIRE ST AFFORD, ALI COOMBER, LEANNE POOLEY, PHILIPPA CAMPBELL, CHRIS MEADE, MERCEDES HOPE, MAREE MCDERMOTTand LISA WOODS:For being there for me, when I most needed you.

MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER:For giving me the life I have.

Dana Rotberg

Another dawn, and she drags her old bones up from sleep.

Her name is Paraiti and when she is sleeping her bones are light and weightless. As she wakes, however, she is aware of all the stiffness, aches and numbness of a body that has aged. She opens her eyes, adjusts to consciousness and listens to her heart thumping away, pushing the blood through thickened veins. ‘Still in the land of the living,’ she says to herself.

She hears the usual wheeze and gurgle as her lungs force her breath in and out, but there’s a lump of phlegm in her throat. ‘Aue,’ she grumbles as, creaking like an old door on worn-out hinges, she heaves herself into a sitting position. She is wearing a long flannel nightgown buttoned to the neck but, even so, the morning is cold, so she wraps a sleeping blanket around her before opening the flap of the tent and spitting into the cuspidor.

Now that she is awake, Paraiti fumbles under the pillow for her battered and well-thumbed Bible and hymnal. She raises her left hand and starts to chant a karakia, the Lord’s Prayer.

‘E to matou matua i te rangi,’ she begins, ‘kia tapu tou ingoa …’

Old habits die hard, and Paraiti wouldn’t dream of beginning a new day without himene and prayer. Her parents Te Teira and Hera, if they were alive, would roar with laughter to see her now; in the old days, when the faithful were all at karakia in the smoky meeting house, she was the child always squirming and wriggling. ‘Kaua e korikori,’ Te Teira would reprimand her.

Although Paraiti went for a few years to a native school, she can’t read very well; she trusts to her memory when quoting from the Old Testament or singing hymns. She raises her hand again in the sign of the faithful, ‘Kororia ki to ingoa tapu, glory be to Thy holy name.’ Her religion is Ringatu, created from the narratives of the Old Testament by the Maori prophet, Te Kooti Arikirangi.

Paraiti lifts her eyes to the sky lightening above her, and marvels again at the goodness of God for having made the world and granting her another day to live in it. The huge canopy of native trees has been a protective umbrella for her sleep; the shimmering giant ferns beneath have provided more intimate shelter from the rain. Mist is steaming from the forest, hastening upward in the wind currents that blow it in arabesques and curlicues toward the bright sun. Here, at the bend of a river, with flax and toetoe unfolding in the lower growth, she has had the perfect camping ground.

Morning prayer over, Paraiti whistles out to her stallion, Ataahua, and to Kaihe, her mule. The sound is strong and piercing with an upturned inflection: ‘Where are you two?’ Well trained, they whinny back. Good, they have not foraged too far away in the night.

Where’s Tiaki, her pig dog? Aha, there he is, big and ugly, emerging silently out of the bush on the other side of the river, looking at her. She calls to him, ‘Have you brought something for my breakfast or have you been selfish and wolfed it all down yourself?’

No, today Tiaki has been kind to his mistress. He has been hunting and in his jaws is a fat wood pigeon, still alive and unmarked. Even so, he whines, offended that Paraiti should think so ill of him. He jumps headlong into the water, swims across and waits for her to take the bird from his mouth. But he won’t let it go.

You can apologise first, mistress.

‘Very well,’ Paraiti says to him. ‘Give me the bird.’

Tiaki sighs, knowing she will release it back into the woods. All his work for nothing?

‘Ae, we let this one go. Give the first to Tane, Lord of the Forest.’ She kisses the pigeon and gives it freedom; it creaks and whistles its way back into the trees. ‘Now go, Tiaki, the second pigeon is for us.’

Paraiti watches her dog bounding back to the river and swimming strongly to the other side, creating a V in the water. Righto, down to the edge, mincing over the pebbles to wash herself, get the pikaru out of her eyes, and use a clean rag to wash her neck, armpits and nether parts. For an old woman, and despite her creaking joints, Paraiti walks with a surprising lightness of step; she is sometimes almost girlish. Where the water laps, she kneels and begins her daily ablutions. While she is at it, she sprinkles some of the drops over her head and looks at her reflection, hoping to see some improvement.

No such luck. Still the same old face, only getting older: big Maori nose, heavy upper lip, lumpy chin, and lots of bushy hair. She fixes the hair by pinning it back with two large ivory combs but, aue, now she can see more of her face. From this angle she looks like a very ugly potato.

‘Never mind,’ Paraiti says to herself. ‘Nobody else around to frighten.’

Time to change into her travelling clothes: layers of blouses all nice and dry, a jerkin made of supple hide, longjohns, a petticoat and long woollen skirt, socks pulled up to the knees and strong boots.