From The Arts Foundation

Barry Barclay, one of New Zealand’s pioneer film-makers died at his home in Northland in the early hours of this morning. He was 63.

Barry produced some of New Zealand’s most important films. His documentary and dramatic films are national treasures as artistic works and his work often explored Māoridom in an intelligent, respectful and genuine manner.

In recognition of his prolific contribution to our national cinema, Barry was honoured as an Arts Foundation Laureate in 2004.

Ros Burdon, Arts Foundation of New Zealand Chairman said that “the Arts Foundation is proud that it was able to honour Barry in 2004. Barry was a highly loved and respected friend of the Foundation. He generously shared his knowledge of film and issues relating to aspects of documentary-making and the involvement of Māori in the film industry with management and with audiences at several Forsyth Barr Laureates On-Stage events”.

Fellow filmmaker, friend and 2001 Laureate Gaylene Preston said “Barry Barclay was a true pioneer film-maker. He established many important networks for encouraging Māori film-making. Māori stories by Māori, for Māori. He was a true visionary. He made films about his community and their concerns and he encouraged his community to make their own films. Apart from groundbreaking work, such as Tangata Whenua, and The Kaipara Affair, his classic film Ngati is one of the greatly loved films of New Zealand cinema. He will be greatly missed”.

Born in 1944, of Pākehā and Māori descent (Ngati Apa), Barry grew up on farms in the Wairarapa, leaving at fifteen to begin studies for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Australia. He left after six years, returning to the Wairarapa where he worked for one year in radio before joining a Masterton-based rural film company as cameraman.

Four years later he joined John O’Shea’s Pacific Films as a director of trade films, television commercials and documentaries. His documentaries of that period include: All That We Need, an energy conservation cinema documentary which opened the 1973 Tehran Film Festival; and Indira Ghandi, a 60 minute documentary profile of the Prime Minister shot in India in 1976 at the height of the Emergency. Of significance was the landmark Tangata Whenua series of documentaries (1974) on which he worked closely with the late Michael King, about Māori life and culture.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Barry was abroad and worked on projects in Sri Lanka, London, Paris and Amsterdam. He returned to New Zealand to write and direct The Neglected Miracle, a feature-length political documentary on the ownership of plant genetic resources, shot over two years in eight countries.

In 1987, Barry became the first Māori to direct a dramatic feature - Ngati - which won Best Film at the Taormina Film Festival, Italy. In 1991 Barry wrote and directed the feature Te Rua, a fictional story about a group of Māori who set off for Berlin to claim back tribal carvings held in a museum there. His most recent films were The Feathers of Peace, a feature drama-documentary based on the Moriori people of Rekohu (the Chatham Islands) and The Kaipara Affair, a feature documentary on the diverse cultural community of Tinopai on the Kaipara Harbour and their united struggle against industry over-fishing in the area.

Barry also turned his hand to writing. His book Mana Tuturu: Māori Treasures and Intellectual Property Rights, published by: Auckland University Press was launched at the end of 2005 and had advised the Arts Foundation he was in the throes of writing a novel, with a working title of The Lithographer and was also involved in the development of a plan to have Wairarapa Māori “record the lives of their own people”.

Barry became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to film, announced in the 2007 Queen’s Birthday honours list.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Events, National identity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.