Storytelling for Our Own People: A Reflection on Script Developing with the Māori Filmmaker Barry Barclay

Abstract

Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay (1944–2008) is recognized internationally as a foundational figure in indigenous filmmaking. A director of both documentary and drama, he was also a skilled screenwriter. At a time when very few features were written or directed by indigenous filmmakers, he was arguing strenuously that control of indigenous image-making should be in the hands of indigenous people themselves. Barclay sought to centralize te ao Māori, or the Māori worldview, in principle and in his practice. This chapter discusses Barclay’s writing process on the feature It Was Darkness (1997), and shows it to be true in many respects to what Margot Nash premised when she wrote of the “uncertainty, risk and entering unsafe territory” that is implicit in a process that places creative discovery above commercial concerns. Despite the conventional genre to which It Was Darkness belonged, Barclay’s approach to theme, structure, character and setting displayed an originality and fidelity to his own philosophy of filmmaking that was rare in New Zealand cinema at that time