I Am the River, the River is Me

In March 2017, a court in New Zealand made a remarkable ruling: the Whanganui, a river on New Zealand's North Island, was recognised as a legal entity and was henceforth to be seen as a living and indivisible being with the same rights as a human being. This ruling ended a court case that had been started 150 years earlier by the Maoris, the people who had arrived at New Zealand, or rather Aotearoa, centuries before the Europeans. The river has always been of great significance to the Maoris, not only as a place to live, but especially in a spiritual sense.

In legal matters, the river is represented by river guardians. One of them, Ned Tapa, invited an Australian Aboriginal leader and his daughter on a five-day canoe trip down the Whanganui. An Australian artist, Ned's friends and family, and of course the film crew also sail along. It will be a memorable and inspiring trip, a wake-up call that we have to do things really differently now.