Untold Tales of Taika - Courtesy of Staple Magazine

Filmmaker. Actor. Artist. Fashion designer? Taika Waititi is a hard man to pigeonhole.

Text by Steve Kerr, photography by David Read

No sentence-long synopsis can do justice to the way in which Taika Waititi's short film Two Cars, One Night succeeds in capturing in a nuanced, honest and accurate way a passing moment of childhood. "Romeo and his brother, Ed, sit in the car waiting for their parents to come out of the pub." Sound like a movie where nothing happens? It isn't.Untold Tales of Taika - Courtesy of Staple Magazine

Filmmaker. Actor. Artist. Fashion designer? Taika Waititi is a hard man to pigeonhole.

Text by Steve Kerr, photography by David Read

No sentence-long synopsis can do justice to the way in which Taika Waititi's short film Two Cars, One Night succeeds in capturing in a nuanced, honest and accurate way a passing moment of childhood. "Romeo and his brother, Ed, sit in the car waiting for their parents to come out of the pub." Sound like a movie where nothing happens? It isn't.Like the kids in his film, Waititi manages to create something profound and fun out of an apparently banal situation. At one level, the film works as an exploration of the way kids naïvely ape adult modes of communication. Beneath the surface, though, its grainy, dark cinematography and CYFS-scare scenario create an impending sense of doom that never resolves. It's simple, elegant and perfect. The film won three awards at the 2003 New Zealand Film Awards, including an award for best performance in a short film for 9-year-old leading man Rangi Ngamoki (who had been plucked from the local kura kaupapa and given a crash course in acting by Nancy Brunning) and one for Waititi himself for best script. Since then, the film has excelled internationally, winning Best Short Film in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival and Best Drama at the Aspen Shortsfest. Technically, it's a 2005 Oscar possibility.

I've come up to Waititi's shared office to talk to Taika the filmmaker. But the guy is a bundle of energy, excitement and ideas, a hard man to pigeonhole. You can't separate the filmmaker from the rest of the whole entertaining, inspirational package. Over the course of our conversation, we talk film and theatre, but also cover the whole gamut of his activities: his recent win of the Wellington 48Hour Filmmaking Competition with the smart, hilarious, lo-fi Heinous Crime; his recent triumph of devising and performing a solo show (Taika's Incredible Show) which sold out in Wellington and Auckland; ideas for a Running Man-esque TV game show; vague plans to design a fashion range ("I'm so into it. Just once in my life to have a fashion show of my own..."); idle thoughts on embarking on a career in music, or producing a choreographic work, the list goes on... As we speak, he's buzzing because he's just finished a series of old skool (old School Journal, in fact) style drawings for a book of short stories by his friend Jo Randerson to be published by VUP. To paraphrase Mike D, this man has a million ideas he ain't even rocked yet. But the thing that makes Waititi truly outstanding is not so much that he does all this stuff, but that he does it so well.

Waititi's been lurking on the Wellington theatre and comedy scene for years, as half of the Humourbeasts (with Jermaine Clement) and the man behind such memorable joints as Little Che and, more recently The Untold Tales of Maui and Taika's Incredible Show. You may know him better as Taika Cohen, the name he uses for acting, writing and other theatre work. Waititi is the surname he uses for visual arts and fashion design. And film. In January, his first 'proper' short film, Two Cars, One Night, took Waititi to snowy Park City, Utah to attend the prestigious Sundance Festival. While Sundance is no doubt a schmoozefest par excellence, he took it all in his stride: "There were a few of us [New Zealanders] there hanging out, me and Chris Graham and Popo Lilo. For me it was a chance to relax, I had no feature ideas I was trying to plug, so I just took the opportunity to get away." Happily, he also discovered that despite its uniquely Kiwi language and setting, the film translated successfully to an international context: "The response was really good. It was important for me to find out what the audience would think of it, the dialogue is so specific. Interestingly, the German audience could understand the kids and laughed a lot more. I think the Americans were just thinking, 'poor kids'." In our post-PC world, you surely do have to get past the child neglect aspect before you can relax and enjoy the film, but for Waititi that was partly the point. "I was looking for a subconscious sense of foreboding but covering it over with some comic dialogue. Comedy always comes out of a serious situation - you've always got to have the pain factor. If Daffy Duck wasn't in pain after being smashed in the face with a frying pan, it wouldn't be as funny."

Speaking of serious situations, Waititi's next film, Tama Tu, concerns a group of six young Maori Battalion soldiers amidst the rubble of a bombed-out house, waiting for the cover of night to escape back to their unit. "It's just about young Maori men hanging out. Kidding around, passing time, getting bored, being teenagers. It's got the same feel as Two Cars, but it's definitely a different film. I'm really pleased with it." With the film not yet in the can, it's already set to screen at festivals in LA and DC at the end of the year. At 17 minutes long, and shot in colour, is Tama Tu the next step towards a full-length film? Waititi is cautious: "I've had so much success with Two Cars now I feel like I'll never better it. I look at it as something that's different, not trying to top it. I'm not wanting to leap into a feature." Nevertheless, a feature film lurks somewhere on the horizon. "I'm writing [one] at the moment. It's based around a family in a small Maori community and they're all a bunch of complete losers. I think the story will be hard to grasp - at the moment it's leaving me feeling a little lost." The plan is to shoot it and have it released next year. This man don't mess around.

So, exactly how does one get to be a prolific writer, director, actor, artist, photographer and aspiring fashion designer? Where does it all come from? Waititi is of Te Whanau-A-Apanui descent and grew up in Waihau Bay, near Te Kaha (where Two Cars was shot) in the eastern Bay of Plenty. "I know the pub really well. Waihau Bay is a tiny little fishing village. I grew up there then came down and lived in Wellington. I went to college here, going back and forwards to the coast." In Wellington, he experienced the archetypal '80s childhood, "I spent all my time watching TV and going to building sites and watching movies. It was the best time. I was a Space Invaders freak." Pretty typical healthy childhood then, riding round on his HMX 500 (with back brakes), listening to Prince and Falco, spending pocket money on Defender ("The best game of last century") and Double Dragon. Something of an '80s childhood influence pervades a lot of his work - witness the beautifully rendered felt-tip pen poster for Taika's Incredible Show, and his fetish for the look of old video footage. "VHS is cool, it fucks up the picture... You've got to go back to the basic shit, it looks incredible."

From college, Waititi went to Victoria University, fell in with a good crowd, and from there his career in theatre took off. Before he got behind the camera, Waititi had quite a career going in front of it, with roles in Scarfies, Snakeskin and The Strip among other things. His talent as an actor has provided him with a crucial source of income over the years. "I appreciate ads for that. I hate them with all my heart but if it means I don't have to do more menial stuff to get by then I'll do it. It's better than washing dishes." He's now doing less and less acting work. "I'm moving away from it, partly by choice and partly 'cause there's a lack of challenging, good roles out there. I moved into directing because I was sick of hanging out waiting to go on and taking orders and not doing my own creative stuff."

In amongst it all, he has found the time to travel and live in Berlin for a time. "I spent a lot of time travelling around and bitching about New Zealand being so small and restrictive, then I came back home and sat around and decided that New Zealand's actually pretty fucking cool. I've got a good network of artist friends, musicians, writers, filmmakers. I've always got these people to communicate with, discuss ideas with and get help. And Wellington's the best place in the country, it's the art capital of New Zealand," he says with a hint of irony, nodding across Cable Street to Te Papa. Maybe some cliches are true, even officially sanctioned ones...

Given his upbringing, and the Maori content of a lot of his work (Tama Tu, Two Cars, Untold Tales), I was interested by his comment in a Listener story earlier this year about not wanting to be seen as a Maori artist - so I ask him to elaborate. "It wasn't that I don't ever want to be thought of like that, but I don't like the way that it's a label. It places expectations on your work. I think whether a person is Maori or not is beside the point in the real issue of art. No one ever says 'he's a Pakeha artist'... People mistake that for me not being proud of being a Maori, which is really stupid. Every part of what I accomplish I have to attribute to being Maori, because I am. It's part of my childhood and who I am now. Every experience you have will some how come with you in your life and have a bearing on your future. [Being Maori] has benefited me in the kind of stories I want to tell."

And it seems film is the ideal medium for Waititi to bring together all his skills and tell those stories. "At the moment, film is the centre of everything, 'cause I'm doing a lot of writing with it as well, and you're always thinking visually. Most stuff starts off with a visual image, then you've got to fit it into a story. And music as well - I listen to music and it triggers a scene."

As far as film heroes go, Waititi is an arthouse geek and proud. "I'm influenced a lot by different directors - the non-mainstream directors are the ones are who I appreciate the most, 'cause they're doing different shit. My favourite New Zealand director would be Florian Habicht [Kaikohe Demolition]. He's on to it. And I can't wait to see [New Zealander Brad McGann's film] In My Father's Den. Lars von Trier is definitely one of the important filmmakers at the moment. He uses mainstream people, sucks them into his weird world and spits them out, without leaving Denmark. I really love the whole Dogma 95 manifesto. I like restrictions, they make you fight to find a solution. And I like that the camera moves around the action, which isn't normal in most film where actors have to be on a mark... I'm into a lot of Asian cinema - in particular Wong Kar Wai - he's just incredible. I'm quite interested in blending theatre and film a bit, in letting scenes play out without being too choppy, so you get a real feel of time and space and place."

All of which begs one final question. As someone with so many projects on the go, how do you keep on top of it all? "I've had a problem with it lately, I've tried to say 'no' to as much as I can. But it seems to work out... I find if I'm not doing anything I get bored." Enough said.

Steve Kerr