Movie Night with Global Scholars

On November 16th the Global Scholars program hosted a Movie Night after school. Mr. Haasser, math teacher and one of our global mentors hosted the movie night with popcorn and students brought in some additional snacks to watch the New Zealand film, Whale Rider.

The consensus from those present, it was very good. The film covers a lot of Maori culture, a Polynesian cultural group native to New Zealand. The Polynesian culture includes indigenous groups all across the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Hawaii. In the film students hear Maori language but also learn about Maori folklore and traditions such as the Haka (Maori war dance that has been adopted by New Zealand sports teams that perform the Haka before international matches as a challenge to their competitors) and traditions involving leadership. The film also focuses on the cultural conflict of traditional cultural traditions and changing norms in today's society. The primary conflict revolving around leadership in a patriarchal society, but the next in line to be chief being a girl, who displays the qualities of leadership and being a chief, but is not a male. The conflict carries on throughout the film as she battles to show her leadership and qualities to be the next chief, while the current chief (her grandfather) tries to stick to tradition and find a new male leader for the community.

Students who viewed the film talked about the strong cultural lessons, as well trying to suppress a few tears throughout the emotional and engaging film. They will be able to use the film as one of their "literary reflections" to count toward the global certificate. If other students would like to watch the film for a literary review, it can be borrowed from our Mukwonago Public Library.

Read more about the film, and see other New Zealand films and shows using the South Pacific Pictures website linked here.