A nationwide search has begun for Maori families who will travel back in time to 1850s New Zealand, for a ground-breaking new documentary series for Television New Zealand.
In 2001, the TV ONE series ‘Pioneer House’ brought our New Zealand history to life for the first time - not with museum mannequins but with a real family who lived for 10 weeks just like they would have if the year had been 1900.
The series was the highest-rating NZOA-funded programme of the year and became compulsive family viewing. History became understandable for tens of thousands of our children and the life of the Feyen family became the subject of school projects across the country.
Now Television New Zealand is preparing to transport three families back in time to 1850s New Zealand, to the period after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Two M?ori families will live in a traditional Maori Pa and one Pakeha family will live nearby as a missionary or working class family might have done in the 1850s.
This exciting project will take three modern-day families on the adventure of a lifetime, living in authentic conditions as they would have in 1850s New Zealand for nearly two months.
The three families will live through the difficulties and frustrations of a life without shampoo, toilet paper or TV. But at the same time, hopefully rediscover the importance of wh?nau, the joy of teamwork and the fact that fun doesn’t have to come in a plastic box from the Warehouse! Life in 19th Century Aotearoa is extensively documented in books and photographs, but how many of us really appreciate what life was like?
The series will be both entertaining and informative and an event that the public will be able to come and watch as the story unfolds on location.
At the heart of every episode will be each family member’s struggle to adapt to subsistence living in a hostile land, at a time in our history when survival was very difficult and where two very different peoples struggled to understand each other.
Production company Black Inc Communications is looking for families who are keen to take part in a living history lesson. They are seeking three families, two Maori families and a Pakeha family. All families must include a Mum, Dad and three or more children, and extended family members such as grandparents are also welcome. One Maori family needs to be fluent in te Reo Maori.
It doesn’t matter where you live in New Zealand, the production will help in relocating members of the chosen families and make all the necessary arrangements with employers and schools. No special skills are required – the perfect families will have a real curiosity about living in the past, be keen as a family to volunteer for this experiment, be healthy, resilient, resourceful and above all have a good sense of humour to cope with all eventualities.
For more information and to apply to be on the show visit:
www.tvnz.co.nz keyword: pa
Media contact:
Bailey Mackey
Producer
Black Inc Communications
Tel: 09 379 7867
Mob: 021 880 560
Email:
bailey@blackincmedia.co.nz
