I am the river, the river is me

Petr Lom, New Zealand
88 min. – 2024 – Documentary – Ten Thousand Images

The Whanganui River, in Aotearoa/New Zealand, is the first river in the world to be recognized as a legal person, a living, indivisible being.
Ned Tapa, the river’s Māori guardian, invites an Australian First Nations elder and his daughter, activists committed to saving their own dying river, to take part in a five-day canoe trip on this sacred river. They are joined by Ned’s friends and family, an international film crew and Ned’s dog Jimmy.
The river is the main character of this film. Both mirror and source of inspiration, it naturally unites all the travelers, offering everyone a voice – including the crew – to share stories of humor and light, and a space to heal from the darkness of the past and persistent historical injustices.
For the Māori, the Whanganui is a living being – their ancestor. This belief was institutionalized by New Zealand law in 2017. Granting the river the status of a legal person is both a means of environmental protection and a legal validation of the Māori worldview.
This film is an invitation to experiment with these values: to see our relationship with the world around us – and above all with the natural world – as an intergenerational responsibility of care and custody, rather than simply one of ownership, use or extraction.
Produced over a period of three years, in close collaboration with the Māori of Whanganui, this film is a positive and urgent call to action for the rights of nature, now the world’s fastest-growing legal movement.