The Waimate Conspiracy

Originally screened at the NZ Film Festival 2006. "This good humoured, deeply fanciful mock documentary about a land claim has a distinctively Cantabrian flavour. The 2005 discovery of a cannonball buried for 138 years in a paddock throws Waimate into turmoil. It’s all some locals need to confirm their long-held belief that local Maori were forcibly removed from their tribal lands in a bloody battle in the winter of 1866. The town is divided as a hotly contested claim eventually ends up in the District Court. Cameraman Dave is embedded with George Kepa (Jim Moriarty) and his whanau – for whom the concept of ‘behind closed doors’ does not seem to exist: we’re privy to their every desperate strategy. This ‘vérité’ footage is intercut with candid interviews with townspeople, including the farmer at the centre of the dispute and with the crucial courtroom drama. Mark Hadlow and David McPhail provide expert caricatures of the white man’s law." [NZFF]

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