1925 all-Maori film found in London

Tu Tangata, Issue 3, 1 November 1981, Page 21

1925 all-Maori film found in London

LONDON. Part one of one of the first movies to be made in New Zealand, shot in 1925 with an all-Maori cast, has been discovered in a loft in London.

Entitled “The Romance of Hinemoa,” and produced by an Italian cameraman, Gustav Pauli, the roll of film, in surprisingly good condition, has been loaned to the New Zealand High Commission.

Officials there have sent it to the New Zealand film archive in Wellington, which knew it had been made, but had been unable to trace the film itself.

The man who found it, a London barrister, Mr John Samuels, lives in a house once occupied by Pauli, the film-maker.

Mr Samuels said he had actually first spotted the can of film tucked up under the eaves of a garden shed. He put it in his loft, where it lay for the last five years.

Pauli made two films in New Zealand, the other being “Under the Southern Cross.”

The film, based on the legend of Hinemoa, was made for the Gaumont Company and it was screened in England in 1926.

According to a review in a movie magazine of that period called “The Picturegoer,” the film presents New Zealand’s natural beauties, ancient Maori tribal customs and the Maori people themselves “in a delightful and intriguing manner.

Although the actors have never done film work before, they show a surprising amount of dramatic talent,” the reviewer said.

Hinemoa was played by a dancer, Maata Hurihanganui, and her lover, Tutenekai, by a Maori wrestler, Akuhato.

Scenes of “The Valley of Fire,” were no trumped up studio set, wrote the reviewer. “They were filmed in the crater of the active volcano, White Island, and the players and cameramen who took part in them were in constant danger the whole of the time.”

Evening Post.