Aotearoa

Aotearoa is a poetic short film set around 1280 CE, imagining the moment Polynesian voyagers first reached the shores of what is now New Zealand. Aboard a great waka crossing the open Pacific, a young boy senses the nearness of land before anyone else can see it, a quiet, almost spiritual recognition. Drawing on the navigational legacy of the Māori ancestors, the film honours the courage, intuition, and deep relationship with the sea that carried a people to a new world.