Film unravels Tigi's tale

LIFE STORY: Revolutionary activist Tigi Ness tells his story in From Street to Sky.

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When filmmaker Bryn Evans met Grey Lynn legend Tigi Ness, he knew his story needed to be told.

Mr Evans drew inspiration from the activist, musician and former Polynesian Panther for his movie From Street to Sky, showing at the Auckland International Film Festival.

"The more he started to unravel I started realising that his story was interesting," he says.

The movie is an insight into Tigi’s life, from his beginnings growing up in Ponsonby’s Pacific Island immigrant neighbourhood to his time demonstrating against racial injustice in the 1970s.

Mr Evans says Tigi’s story is so interesting it tells itself without needing fancy techniques.

"He’s such a great storyteller, it was relatively easy to make a film about him."

At first the reggae musician - father of hip hop artist Che Fu - was coy about the idea of a movie being made about him.

But Mr Evans says it was never about putting him up on a pedestal.

He hopes the story will appeal because Tigi is really "a pretty normal guy" and his story touches on so many elements of human emotion.

"We can all relate to it on some level," he says.

Film festival programme director Bill Gosden says the film was an obvious selection.

"It’s an incredibly engaging portrait of a local hero."

The film has been made with "great affection and respect for the subject", but is not a piece of mindless fan worship.

"There’s a good sense of grittiness about it," he says.

A former photo journalist, Mr Evans says the thread of his stories has always been based around human identity and indigenous affairs.

He was inspired partly by his father’s work with Unesco in the Solomon Islands and by reading his grandfather’s National Geographic magazines as a child.

He left New Zealand at 18 to work as a photographer in London and spent many years working and travelling through developing countries including Bosnia and Afghanistan.

His first documentary followed the story of the Taliban cricket team in Afghanistan just after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

He describes it as an interesting time when it was relatively safe to travel because American forces had just occupied the country.

"We drove around parts you wouldn’t ever go to now."

He returned to New Zealand from New Delhi in 2003 and set up his film production company BraveStar, based in Grey Lynn.

He is currently working on the fifth series of reality documentary Tatai Hono for Maori TV, which follows the journeys of Maori trying to reconnect with their origins.

From Street to Sky will debut at the International Film Festival on July 26. The International Film Festival runs until July 27.

For more information see www.enzedff.co.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News