This feature length documentary (made by Muriwai local Ursula Williams) follows one of Aotearoa’s most beloved artists, Marlon Williams, as he sets out on his most ambitious musical project yet: creating an album sung entirely in te reo Maori.

Feeling burnt out from the touring cycle, acclaimed New Zealand musician and actor Marlon Williams (Bad Behaviour, MIFF 2023) returns to his quiet coastal hometown of Ohinehou/Lyttelton to work on a life- and career-changing undertaking: recording an album, Te Whare Tiwekaweka, in his ancestral language of te reo Maori. Using song to explore his split cultural identity – part pakeha, part Maori, from both Ngai Tahu and Ngai Tai iwi – the project finds Williams reconnecting with his heritage, deepening his community and reclaiming his reo, as he puts something “flawed and searching and naive and brave” out into the world.

Chronicling Williams’s artistic process across four years, director Ursula Grace Williams follows the troubadour from the tranquillity of the South Island to his adopted home of Melbourne – and onwards to tours around the world and back, where he duets with Lorde, Aldous Harding and Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine) along the way. Balancing moments of behind-the-scenes levity with remarkable musical sequences built around Williams’s new waiata, this engrossing documentary playfully captures one musician’s poignant personal journey.

“A deeply personal story of reconnection with whakapapa and language … This is a brave, essential and joyous film that couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Much more than another music documentary, it feels like quietly witnessing a piece of history.” – The Spinoff
 

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The short film PLUCK will be played prior to the feature documentary.
Doors open at 6:30 films will start at 7:30