Born in Wellington, New Zealand of the Māori tribe Ngāti Porou, Lee Tamahori began his career as a commercial artist and photographer before moving into the film industry (per Best In Business 2024). His feature directorial debut Once Were Warriors, about a Māori family living in a village in New Zealand, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. His breakout debut led to blockbuster opportunities, helming films like The Edge starring Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins, the Bond film Die Another Day, and Next starring Nicolas Cage. In his later career, he returned to making films in New Zealand like 2016’s Mahana and 2023’s The Convert.
Reflecting on making The Convert, Tamahori told Australian outlet Flicks that young Māori crew members would come up to him “and they’d say ‘it’s really important that we get this thing right. Because this is our culture, our story. We’re really pleased to be working on [this] because we’re seeing our ancestors in action.’ It’s a uniquely Māori perspective on it. They’re proud of their ancestry and proud of their tīpuna who gave their lives—or didn’t. It’s a pretty unique thing. It’s pretty touching, actually.”
Speaking to RNZ, The Convert star Te Kohe Tuhaka remembered his “mentor” Tamahori, saying the filmmaker’s legacy is “being able to not only go international, work on the big stage there, but also have an eye and a heart to coming home, to telling our stories, to opening up doors for our crew, our young producers like myself, young actors like myself, the myriad of people he’s influenced in their careers from in front of the lens and behind the lens. So he did it seamlessly… we walked the path that he was paving for us as Māori filmmakers in this industry equally.”
Tamahori by his long-time love Justine, his beloved children Sam, Max, Meka, and Tané, his daughter-in-laws Casey and Meri, and grandchild Cora Lee.
