Documentaries
Maori Television has taken the advent of Matariki as a sign to launch a new 12-week season of Documentary Aotearoa, beginning with Wilbur: King in the Ring (Maori TV, Monday, 8.30pm), which screened at this year’s Doc Edge Festival.
Director Jan Oliver Lucks captures his larger-than-life friend, former pro-wrestler Wilbur McDougall, as he embarks on gastric sleeve surgery. However, the documentary is also about their friendship and questions arise as to how much Lucks is manipulating events, at one point claiming “I saved your life”. McDougall is not so sure:
“This is not as deep as you want it to be,” he says.
Other documentaries in the season include Ngarara, which looks at drug addiction and the use of Maori remedies; Helen’s Story, which captures Helen Ngahuia Thomas’s battle with pancreatic cancer; One World: He Ao Kotahi, which follows ta moko artist Katz Mahi on a trip to Israel and Palestine; Target Zero, which follows Mike King’s work in suicide prevention; and a profile of film and broadcasting legend Don Selwyn.
Our Guy in China (Choice TV, Wednesday, 7.30pm) is like going on holiday with your mechanic brother. Motorcycle racer and mechanic Guy Martin focuses on technology and innovation in that great nation, concluding the threepart series with a bike ride across the Taklamakan, known as the “desert of death”.