Taika Waititi awarded Queen's birthday honour for services to film
Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi has been honoured on New Zealand’s Queen’s birthday list for services to film.
The 44-year-old Māori man who hails from the east coast of the North Island has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Some of his most famous work – most notably the film Boy – was based in part on his own experiences, and over decades he has shown a passion for telling the stories of Indigenous people, as well as others often overlooked by the mainstream film community.
Waititi told Radio New Zealand that an award from New Zealand meant more than any other, and Boy, set on the East Cape, remained the work he was most proud of.
“Personally I make my stuff for New Zealanders first and foremost. They are my first audience. My peers and colleagues, to be recognised by them, people who are closer to my home, is more significant.”
A total of 178 New Zealanders were on the list, including former All Blacks captain Kieran Read, novelist Elizabeth Knox, and Māori linguist Āni Pātene Gazala Wainu.
Waititi’s Nazi-era satire Jojo Rabbit won the Oscar for best-adapted screenplay at the 2020 Academy Awards.
Related: 'We can make it here': Taika Waititi urges on Indigenous talent after Oscar win
In his acceptance speech Waititi thanked his mother for giving him the book on which the film was based and dedicated the award to “all the indigenous kids in the world who want to do art and write and dance and who are the original storytellers.”
“We can make it here” he said.
Last month, Waititi was announced as the director of the new Star Wars film, after impressing Hollywood with his big-action blockbuster, Thor: Ragnarok.
After winning the Oscar prime minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand was “incredibly proud of him”, while Christine Leunens, the author of the novel that Waititi adapted to win his Oscar, said she watched all of Waititi’s work before agreeing to let him adapt it.
“There was something very distinctive, tragedy and humour [about his work],” she said. “Living in New Zealand, I find that the Māori have such a wonderful sense of humour, and such warmth and such inclusivity.”
Ella Henry, a commentator on the Māori screen industry based at Auckland University of Technology, said although Jojo Rabbit was not on its face an Indigenous tale, Waititi had told it in a way that was in keeping with Māori storytelling traditions.
“If you look at the way Taika’s films have evolved to use humour and pathos to express trauma, he elevates survival by bringing that pathos and humour and resilience to those stories,” she said. “So I would say it’s a very Māori story.”
In New Zealand, Waititi is beloved, and his earlier films, namely Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, are the highest-grossing New Zealand films of all time.
In 2017 he was named New Zealander of the year, and used the opportunity to front a series of anti-racism campaigns.
