John The Baptist
2018 · 3m · New Zealand
Directed by Kayne Ngātokowhā Peters
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
An Englishman moves to New Zealand on a mission to share his faith in te reo Māori.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A documentary about faith and language should be a snooze, but Peters weaponizes the most boring premise imaginable—an Englishman doing missionary work—and makes you question what 'sharing faith' actually means across cultural and linguistic lines. It's the rare film that uses restraint as provocation.
Peters situates this work in a lineage of essayistic documentary and postcolonial inquiry, with an editing rhythm that lets silence and te reo Māori coexist as equal formal elements—the craft here is in what's *not* explained.
The singular choice is letting John speak te reo Māori itself carry the spiritual weight rather than English translation or narration—that linguistic commitment, made on a three-minute budget, transforms a profile into something theologically precise and formally daring.