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Director: Niki Caro
New Zealand/Aotearoa | 2002 | 101 mins | Fiction | English/Maori w/English subtitles
Sponsored by Bridget and Nick Meyer
Set in Whangara, a town on the East Coast of the North Island, Whale Rider tells the story of a young Maori girl, Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes). Pai must challenge tradition and simultaneously embrace the past while finding the strength and will to lead her people. Based on Witi Ihimaera’s novel, “The Whale Rider”, marrying a specific sense of place and culture with a universal coming-of-age story, Whale Rider met incredible success worldwide; it won multiple audience choice awards, including those at Sundance and Toronto. Whale Rider is not a simplistic fable but the story of real people living in modern times.