FIVE NEW ICONS DON SELWYN, Ngāti Kuri and Te Aupouri
1936—2007
Actor/Director, stage and screen
It’s not about you, it’s about the kaupapa. If you keep the kaupapa, the philosophical position [of ] the value in front, then you will never become more important than the value. The philosophy, the kaupapa is in front of us and we have to support it. We support the philosophy that is going to uplift our people. Don Selwyn, from The Don, Mercury Lane, Greenstone Pictures, 2001
Don’s family take this opportunity to formally thank the Arts Foundation of New Zealand for bestowing this honour on Don in recognition of the body of work he created on film.
~Photo by APN/New Zealand Herald~
Don Selwyn was selected for an Icon Award in February 2007. The Arts Foundation was grateful that Foundation Governor Gaylene Preston, visited Don Selwyn and his family at North Shore Hospital a few weeks before his death with news that he had been selected. Shirley Selwyn announced the Award to Don and conveyed his acceptance to the Foundation. With a longstanding and distinguished career in the New Zealand film, television and theatre industry as an actor, producer and director, Don Selwyn was a champion of Māori drama. He performed in both Māori and English, and was a prime mover in establishing respect for Māori representations and culture in mainstream New Zealand film and television. Born in 1936, Don grew up in Taumarunui. Originally a rugby-playing English teacher, his acting career was initiated by a dare which led him to play Oberon in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He toured with the Nola Millar Shakespeare Company and appeared in the musical Porgy and Bess, the film Sleeping Dogs and in television series such as The Governor and Pukemanu. Don was a founding member of the New Zealand Māori Theatre Trust. He ran the film and
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television course He Taonga i Tawhiti, and with producer Ruth Kaupua Panapa formed He Taonga Films. He produced and directed Māori language dramas and several Māori dramas in English. Don was Executive Producer of the 2000 New Zealand Media Peace Award winning feature The Feathers of Peace, and produced the first full length feature film to be made in Māori: Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti, the Māori Merchant of Venice. Don received the Companion of the Order of New Zealand Merit (CNZM) as well as an honorary performing arts degree from Unitec, and Te Tohu Tiketike a Te Waka Toi, an award presented annually by Te Waka Toi for outstanding contribution to the development of Māori arts. [Don] devoted more than four decades to probing enquiries into concepts of a shared vision of achieving excellence and creating a critical mass of knowledge, relationships, experience and expertise of a Māori …community inside theatre and film. As an actor, director and filmmaker Selwyn sought to show and explain Māori experiences in the world of theatre, drama, television and film. Professor Taiarahia Black, Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Massey University, citation (2002).
Our matua Don Selwyn is forever imprinted upon the hearts of all who knew him. He is emblazoned within the minds of many. He made his creative spirit soar despite the demons that come with understanding. He truly showed us a vision of the way that the dramatic arts could be: a proud amalgam of the very best of all performance traditions and tikanga. He brought nobility to his craft. He carved a wide swathe through the bullshit that conspires against those who aspire to something greater than what is permitted. He was the most humble of modern Māori warriors. His triumphs before and behind the camera leave us a legacy matched by no other. He was the embodiment of the dreams of forebears. He made real the essence of their deepest teachings. We looked to him for definition. He made sure we never forgot. Don was both doer and nurturer. He scaled the heights. He cared and he loved. He re-fashioned and passed on our manifest destiny. Kua hinga te totara nui o te wao tapu. Kua paku noa tōna rongo, he rongo kino nei. Haere rā e Don, e te whakaruruhau o te wā. Moe mai rā. Tainui Stephens, freelance TV producer, director and film director
~Don Selwyn (right) as Cray in Came a Hot Friday (1985). Frame enlargement.
~Don Selwyn a a Kaitaia policeman in Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), Frame enlargement.
Stills Collection, New Zealand Film Archive / Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua~
Stills Collection, New Zealand Film Archive/Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua~
A R TS F OUNDAT I ON OF NEW Z EAL AND | PR INCIPAL SPO NSO R FO R SYTH