14/11/2025
Monday night, Movie night 📽️
The Whanganui Māori proverb, recognising the river as their ancestor and as a living spiritual being, says: Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au. I am the river and the river is me.
From 6pm, we'll be screening the 2024 documentary honouring this proverb in it's title: "I am the River, The River is Me".
Ned Tapa, Whanganui River guardian and Māori community leader, will be joining us for a inviting discussion on our relationship to the natural world around us, and intergenerational care and guardianship rather than ownership, use, and extraction.
The Whanganui River in Aotearoa/New Zealand is the first river in the world to be recognised as a legal person, as a living and indivisible being. The film is the result of a four-year long collaboration with the Māori community in Whanganui.
The film is also an international celebration of passion for our natural world. Director and cinematographer, petr lom, and Producer, Corinne van Egeraat, were deeply resonated with the granting of personhood to the Whanganui River and set about connecting with community, finding funding, and traveling to Aotearoa from The Netherlands for filming.
Passion for this film also extended to Tati Tati woman Melissa Kennedy, from the Murray River region of Australia, to join in and advocate for rights of the rivers for First Nations Australians.
Along the banks of the Whanganui River, you will witness Grammy award-winning composer Jerome Kavanagh creating the score for the film.
These notes are but a mere drop of insight, there is great depth in this significant and powerful documentary.
Join us for this free screening on Mon 17 Nov from 6pm at the AUT Conference Centre.
https://2025.foss4g.org/program/movie-screening
https://iamtheriver.org
