Exploring traditional birthing

Award-winning doco to be screened at Regent Theatre

Award-winning New Zealand documentary Pacific Mother, which asks the question: “Why do mothers have to fight so hard for what feels so right?” is screening for two special sessions at Te Awamutu’s Regent Theatre this month.

Kiwi freediving legend William Trubridge and his partner Sachiko Fukumoto say Aotearoa New Zealand has the most enviable maternity system in the world because it was the only place that would allow them to give birth at home, in water, with a midwife by their side.

But even New Zealand’s maternity system is rife with challenges, and their new film Pacific Mother asks what can be done to build maternity care systems that benefit entire communities.

Pacific Mother was named Best New Zealand feature when it premiered at the Doc Edge Film Festival last year.

At the Doc Edge awards, director Katherine McRae was awarded Best New Zealand Director, while editor Lala Rolls was awarded Best New Zealand Editing. The film, which is set in and around the Pacific Ocean, also took out the award for Best New Zealand cinematography.

Pacific Mother is the feature-length sequel to the short documentary Water Baby (2019), which followed Trubridge and Fukumoto’s first birth journey.

The eight-minute film was viewed by millions around the world and won the support of midwives and birth educators.

Director Katherine McRae says the team were surprised by the impact of Water Baby and knew it had only scratched the surface of the issues around a family’s right to choose.

In Pacific Mother, McRae follows Sachiko as she connects with ocean women and birth workers from around the Pacific living in Hawaii, Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Okinawa and Aotearoa New Zealand. Through their interwoven stories, the film explores the importance of community, reclaiming traditional birthing knowledge and the connection between caring for the planet and nurturing both parents and their children.

Producer Migiwa Ozawa says there are many excellent documentaries about childbirth, but she wanted to motivate people to think about how to prepare for birth and their transition to parenthood, and how they can support others in this

journey. “If people do not know there is an alternative, nothing will change,” she says. Pacific Mother screens on Wednesday, May 15 at 6.30pm and Sunday, May 19 at 10.45am. Tickets can be purchased from theregent.nz

In a new documentary, Pacific Mother, freediver and modelturned-actress Sachiko Fukumoto champions the rights of “water women” to have a choice over the way they give birth.