New Zealand Filmmaker Taika Waititi
Credit: © Xavier Collin, Image Press Agency/Alamy Images

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will celebrate the accomplishments and heritage of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Taika Waititi is a New Zealand filmmaker known for his comedies. In 2020, he became the first person of Māori ancestry to win an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. He won for the motion picture Jojo Rabbit (2019), based on the novel Caging Skies (2008) by Christine Leunens. He was also the first Indigenous (native) writer to be nominated for an Academy Award for a screenplay. Jojo Rabbit tells the story of a German boy whose mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home during World War II (1939-1945). The boy struggles with his beliefs in Nazism and anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews). He confronts these ideas in part in the form of his imaginary friend, a buffoonish Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi in the film.

Taika Cohen was born on Aug. 16, 1975, in Raukokore, on the North Island of New Zealand. For his professional career, he later adopted the surname of his father, the Māori artist Taika Waititi, who also went by Tiger. Taika means tiger in the Māori language. The young Taika grew up in Wellington with his mother, the educator Robin Cohen. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in 1997 with a degree in theater and arts. At the school, he formed a comedy duo called The Humourbeasts with the comic musician Jemaine Clement. Waititi later directed and wrote a few episodes of the television series “The Flight of the Conchords” (2007-2009) in which Clement co-starred with Bret McKenzie.

Waititi made his screen acting debut in the motion picture Scarfies (1999). He showed his first short film, John & Pogo (2002), at the New Zealand International Film Festival. His next short film, Two Cars, One Night (2003), was nominated for an Academy Award. Waititi’s first feature-length film was Eagle vs. Shark (2007). Both Eagle vs. Shark and his second feature film, Boy (2010), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Boy is a comedy-drama about the reunion of a Māori son with his father, played by Waititi. Waititi wrote and directed Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). It surpassed Boy as the highest-grossing New Zealand-made film of all time.

Waititi and Clement co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the short film What We Do in the Shadows: Interviews with Some Vampires (2005). It was expanded into a mockumentary (satirical documentary) film What We Do in the Shadows (2014), followed by a television series of the same name starting in 2019.

Waititi directed the Marvel Studios film Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and its sequel Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), which he also cowrote. He provided the voice for the rocklike warrior Korg in these and other Marvel Studios productions. Waititi has also worked on projects set in the “Star Wars” universe. Starting in 2022, he produced the comedy series “Our Flag Means Death.” The show follows Stede Bonnet, an aristocrat turned pirate who sailed with the famous Blackbeard, played by Waititi.

June 25, 2018

The Māori are the indigenous (native) people of New Zealand. New Zealand is also known by the traditional Māori name Aotearoa. Te Reo, the Māori language, is a Polynesian language that evolved in isolation in New Zealand over hundreds of years. The language is most closely related to the languages of the Society and Cook Islands more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) to the northeast in the Pacific Ocean. Most scholars believe Māori first settled New Zealand around A.D. 1200. According to Māori tradition, however, they began arriving more than 1,800 years ago. They arrived in huge, double-hulled seafaring canoes.

Māori flag.
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The Māori language of Te Reo was traditionally only oral. There was no writing system. Stories were passed down through generations via songs, called waiata, which commemorated important events. Other tales and traditions were communicated through carvings, weaving, and tattooing.

By the 1700′s, all New Zealand was populated by different Māori groups. Most lived in small isolated villages, where people fished and hunted and also grew crops. Each group had a traditional territory, and conflict between groups was common. Relationships between groups were established and maintained through large gatherings and elaborate rituals to celebrate various rites of passage.

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New Zealand.
Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Māori gatherings often begin with a ritual greeting called pōwhiri. This ceremonial greeting usually starts outside the marae, the open meeting ground at the center of a Māori village. As visitors arrive, a warrior from the host village will challenge guests, to see whether they are friend or foe. He may be armed with a spear, but he will also lay down a small leafy branch before the visitors. The visitors pick up the token to show that they come in peace. This initial ritual is followed by various calls by the hosts and responses by the visitors as they enter the marae. After everyone is seated, a series of speeches and songs follows, usually from elders of each group. Once the speeches are completed, the visitors present their hosts a gift. The ceremony ends with a hongi—the traditional Māori touching of noses—and food is shared.

In the early 1800’s, Te Reo was the predominant language spoken in New Zealand. As more English speakers arrived in New Zealand, the Māori language was increasingly confined to Māori communities. Over time, the Māori language was suppressed in schools, either formally or informally, in an attempt to ensure Māori children would assimilate with the wider European community in New Zealand. By the mid-1900’s, linguists were concerned that the Māori language was at risk of disappearing.

Beginning in the early 1970’s, a number of Māori student organizations initiated a revival of their traditional language. On Sept. 14, 1972, the organizations petitioned Parliament to request that Māori language classes be offered in schools. Beginning in 1975, this event has been recognized and celebrated during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (Māori language week). In 1978, New Zealand’s first bilingual school opened at Rūātoki. The first Māori-owned Māori-language radio station hit the airwaves in 1983. Today, about 125,000 people of Māori ethnicity speak and understand Te Reo. It is also recognized as one of the three official languages of New Zealand, along with English and New Zealand Sign Language.