Film of show to be broadcast

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 26

Film of show to be broadcast

PA Wellington An hour-long National Film Unit documentary on Te Maori exhibition will be shown on American television in December. The National Film Unit’s manager, Mr Doug Eckhoff, said that the film would be shown on the Public Broadcasting System channel probably in Christmas week, thus ensuring a large audience. It would be offered to Television New Zealand and other markets, but it had been designed for the international television market. The film’s American director, Mr Tom Horton, is in the United States to film the opening ceremony be-

fore coming back to shoot some final sequences in New Zealand. Although a hired crew was used for the American sequences, Mr Eckhoff said that 80 per cent of the film was being made in New Zealand ' using film unit staff. Mr Eckhoff would not put a cost on the film although he said that earlier figures quoted of about $300,000 were wildly exaggerated. The budget was well under $lOO,OOO. He said the documentary was designed to show people why Maoris carved the way they did, and to support all the effort being put into Te Maori exhibition.