A road movie like no other: Kath Akuhata-Brown's Kōkā

In Kōkā, a kuia named Hamo - under the celestial guidance of Matariki, - makes a long journey home to the East Coast in a car that's seen better days.

She's joined by Jo, a charismatic, troubled and troubling young woman, played by Hinetu Dell and Darneen Christian respectively.

For Kōkā's director, Kath Akuhata-Brown (Ngāti Porou), this has also been a long journey - to make a film on her, and her iwi's own terms.

She says Kōkā is a road trip movie, but it is of a very Māori, surreal kind - navigating between this world and the next.

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Akuhata-Brown started working on the story back in 2003.

“It extends all the way back to when I went to Amsterdam Film School in 2003. And that's when I first started writing it," she told RNZ’s Culture 101.

“Mostly, it was because I realised that I had to write something that I could connect to. Otherwise, I was just making it up. And I really couldn't stay the long haul with something that wasn't deeply personal to me. So that's why I started writing this story.”

Christian's audition tapes leapt out, Akuhata-Brown, says.

“I took one look at her and I thought, oh my goodness, she's so amazing, we have to audition her. When we offered her the role, she switched into that character, because actually Darneen’s very shy and socially awkward. So for the strength that she found to play this character was incredible."

Christian's performance as Jo inspired her own portrayal of Hamo, Hinetu Dell told RNZ's Nine to Noon.

"When I saw her in some of the shoots, I said, This is where I need to go. Because when I first met her, when she was first introduced, she was a very quiet, very shy girl.

"And so, when I saw her in action, a light bulb went off, this is it, I know where I need to go with this. So, for me, she was very inspirational."

Akuhata-Brown wrote Jo in homage to a man she met in the 1990s in Rotorua who would gatecrash tangi for warmth and food, she says.

“When I met him, the guy had no filters, and it was actually quite disturbing, I thought to myself, he's not going to live much longer if he keeps doing this.

“Three years later, he was found dead in a ditch, and my heart just went out to him and to all those who are disconnected from whānau and from the world. And so I wrote Jo to honour him, in fact, his name was Joseph, I wrote Jo to honour him and all those people who live on the edge of the world and in the cracks.”

The story is infused with aroha, she says.

“We can tell the story without aroha, and it would be a different story. It would be a different film. The application of aroha into every space that exists within the frame brings it to a place of safety.”

Half of the film is in te reo, specifically the Ngāti Porou dialect.

“Why we're making a thing about it being Ngāti Porou reo is because our team travelled back to my marae, my producers and I, and sat down with all those elders, and they pulled the script apart, and they debated every single line, and they called on Ngāti Porou's specific references.

“In some instances, they made it up on the day, they made it up based on what they understood of that world, and that's why it is really Ngāti Porou, because when you walk the landscape down there, it's like you're walking through the language of the film.”

Kōkā is in New Zealand cinemas on general release from Thursday 19 June.