Producer's Statement - the Dakumentary

When I met Gary and Dakta in the Southern Cross one day in 2018, I doubt I had any idea how much my life was about to be transformed. We'd just come off the minor success of the CRC conference video, but from the outset it was clear that Dakta and Gary had more in mind than just a puff piece. Gary likes to joke that if he could get Simeon Brown to ride along with them, he'd become a pro-weed advocate, and I guess my effete prissiness made for an effective foil as Gary unleashed his encyclopaedic knowledge of NZ cultural history. I'd had an interest in NZ folktales for a few years by the time I met him, and was in the early stages of writing a radio play about Early Medieval Ireland. Despite the various films that we made, I never thought of the guys as anything other than people who believed in the cause above all (give or take a manic episode ☘️). - It's been a gigantic hassle to spend so much of my life with the fuzz hovering around, but I think the film is ultimately worth it. While some may see Jafar Panahi comparisons, I feel it's somewhat superficial: Dakta's house arrest is a fairly minor theme in the overall canvas. - Adversity is often a fuel for effective movies, and I think to have made a dissenting piece that questions the institutions which perpetuate the War on Drugs, and the ones which seem to be serving competing agendas, is a massive accomplishment during an era of almost unprecedented censorship. The film isn't necessarily anti-police, but it's certainly a middle finger to those who arrested Dakta on a trumped-up Class B charge. As for my own drug escapades, well: I've never dealt a Class B drug. I've sold a small amount of cannabis flower, and I sourced some DMT for some buddies. My financial worries were very real, and my family shutting me out was something that I have yet to forgive... is it any wonder that drug dealing became a realistic option to make money? I think this is a good time to remind people that drugs are a conscience issue, so it's not necessarily a left-right divide regarding the varying opinions about recreational drug use and the place of social clubs in the brave new world that the Dak team believe is the future of drug legislation in Aotearoa-New Zealand. -

This is not a defence: it's a press release. I don't really feel a need to defend my actions: they were for the cause, and I think a lot of people enjoyed pushing my buttons rather than asking if I was stable (or consenting), so if psychoactive drugs become legal, it'd be great if people remembered the many activists who fought the good fight. 👍 It wasn't the drugs that made me mental: it was the townspeople. 🎞️