Paulart

is a factual short form film series telling the story of a small New Zealand town with an exceptional past, a town that produced an amazing array of champions throughout its history.

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From  this small New Zealand coal town emerged two cabinet ministers in the first Labour government, an All Black’s Manager, a Kiwi’s Manager – 19 New Zealand Rugby League Representatives, World and NZ champion bowlers, NZ sports representatives in shooting, swimming, tennis, boxing, billiards, a NZ National Youth Orchestra pianist and a Boston Marathon winner!

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The town was born out of Premier Richard John Seddon’s desire to smash monopolies and the main monopoly at that time was coal  - coal at that time was simply what oil is today! He pushed for state mines and in 1903 the Point Elizabeth Colliery opened to great fanfare.

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Runanga was at the forefront of the country’s early socialist struggles, beginning with the formation of the Runanga Miners' Union and culminating in the creation of New Zealand’s Labour Party. Fervently socialist, several of Runanga’s young men were incarcerated in Fort Jervois, Ripapa Island for their anti-conscriptionist idealogy refusing at the outset of WW1 to fight for an ‘imperialist’ cause, some even going on hunger strike!

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As we journey through the towns extraordinary history, we hear of the Italians who were taken out of the mines and classed as the enemy during WW2, the women who were the ‘social fabric of the town’ and ‘a bit gossipy’, the miners - their camraderie and competitiveness, the tragedies and the triumphs! 

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This is the universal story of migrants, their dreams of a better life, it is New Zealand’s working class history told through the voices of a

small West Coast town, a town that would change New Zealand’s political landscape forever.

 

Political champions, sporting champions, and unionists who championed their fellow man,  'Runanga -  Home of Champions'.