Anahera Parata, winner best music video at the AMA Artisan Awards. Credit / Three
Producer and director Anahera Parata has won best music video at the AMA Artisan Awards.
Parata, who says Māori is her first language, received the Te Puoro Ataata Toa NZ On Air Best Music Video award for Onehunga hip hop group SWIDT's song Bunga which addresses New Zealand's' insecurities towards Pacific communities.
Chris Alosio, aka Spycc, of SWIDT in the music video Bunga. Source / YouTube
"My heart is bursting out of my chest," Parata said during coverage of the awards on Three. "I'm so humbled by this. This is incredible, my team won this."
She acknowledged the five-member hip hop group SWIDT for trusting her creative vision and allowing her "the freedom to really explore this narrative by honouring our history as Pacific people."
"I am all for working on projects that have heart and soul and have something to say."
Last year, when the music video was first released, SWIDT's Chris Alosio told Coconet TV about the significance of the home where the video was filmed.
"The video was shot in affluent Herne Bay, Auckland in the only Pacific owned home on the street, which is occupied by a Tongan family who have lived there for four generations. During the Dawn Raids in the mid-70s, family groups would hide out in the bedrooms of this home," he said.
In place of a live event, this year’s Artisan Awards were pre-recorded at Massey University’s School of Music and Creative Media Production in Wellington and broadcast on Three.