27 Aug 2012

Producer plans film script for Kapit residency

8:49 pm on 27 August 2012

Radio New Zealand's Te Ahi Kaa producer and presenter Maraea Rakuraku has been awarded the annual Tau Mai e Kapiti residency of eight weeks on Kapiti Island.

Rakuraku - of Ngai Tuhoe and Ngati Kahungunu descent - is the fifth resident writer to be selected since the programme kicked off in 2008.

The residency is funded by Te Waka Toi (Creative NZ) and hosted by Kaitiaki o Kapiti Trust, and each year chooses one Maori writer to spend eight weeks living and working at the northern end of Kapiti Island.

Rakuraku says she feels privileged to get the opportunity to work and live in the natural and isolated surroundings of Kapiti Island and that she can concentrate solely on her writing.

She visited the island for a writers' retreat in 2008, and now plans to finish the first draft of a film script which she conceived on that visit.

She will begin her stay on the island on September 10 and will stay to the end of October.