Erina Daniels

Ma, Heps, Pua, Liz, and Taaps are your average group of twenty-something Māori and Pasifika living in Wellington. Together, this group of friends crash through the city, grappling first with their cultural identities and then with each other.

A gang member wakes up one morning and decides he needs a day off. Inspired by a newspaper advertisement he impulsively decides to take a short ferry trip between islands. With his tattooed face, black leather clothing, and prominent gang patch, the gangster is a fish out of water when he arrives in the idyllic small port town of Picton. The experience he has there will change his outlook on life forever.

This impressive doco disperses the fog of shame and sensationalism to shed light on the tragedy that made international headlines in 2007 when a young Wainuiomata woman died during a mākutu lifting.

Paradise is a young single pregnant mother living on the bones of her ass. Her boyfriend is in prison and her mother wants nothing to do with her. Desperate for help she finds solace in the two people in the world that love her unconditionally; her children.

Ma, Heps, Pua, Liz, and Taaps are your average group of twenty-something Māori and Pasifika living in Wellington. Together, this group of friends crash through the city, grappling first with their cultural identities and then with each other.