New Zealand Film - "Maori Boy Genius" playing at Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival October 13 Toronto

Maori Boy Genius

Location: TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. West

Saturday October 13 9:00 pm cinema 3

Passes and individual tickets at http://planetinfocus.org/film-festival/buy-tickets/

Canadian Premiere

Director: Pietra Brettkelly

New Zealand, The Netherlands / 2011 / 90 min / Documentary

From the moment of his birth, Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti has carried on his shoulders the heavy weight of his responsibility as a future leader of the Maori community. Still only 16, Pumanawawhiti wants to be the first in his community to go to university to gain the tools and means to fight for the indigenous rights of his people.

Pietra Brettkelly, best known for her Sundance Film Festival award-winning film The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, follows Pumanawawhiti as he goes to Yale for the summer to further his academic ambitions, spends time with his large, close-knit family, attends events in his community, hangs out with his friends and becomes involved with his people’s fight to save their sacred land and ocean.