The 1980s. Josh, a half-Māori boy, attends a school for white boys.

Soon, his teacher notices his talent for theater, while protests erupt among the indigenous population against a rugby match with the South African team.

Amid the chaos, Josh must decide who he wants to be and how to fight for himself and his future.

• film w języku angielskim z polskimi napisami
• wiek: 14+

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Film expert recommends

The first joint film by two filmmakers from the Antipodes, who separately made, among others, City of Separations (2009, Middletich) and Bellbird (2019, Bennet), already gaining engagement in American cinema. In this case, the screen story, while clearly New Zealand in its eccentricity, like the works of Taika Waititi and many of his predecessors, is also international in scope. It concerns the arrival in this country in the 1980s of rugby players from South Africa, bringing with them the odium of apartheid and racism, which the native New Zealanders experienced all too keenly. At the forefront, however, is a classic coming-of-age story that places a peer-rejected teenager against the backdrop of these social and moral problems. Pride in oneself, in one’s nation, and in one’s country are finally painstakingly gained in Uproar, but the film’s form – an absurdist comedy – reduces these phenomena to a light tone that modern viewers are still able to absorb. Politics mixes with foolishness, the search for one’s own voice with national inertia. The discovery of the film is certainly the performance of Julian Dennison (b. 2002), in the role of the seventeen-year-old protagonist of the piece, who eight years ago we could see in Waititi’s Wild Hunt (2016). So we’re in the (New Zealand) house!

Jacek Nowakowski