‘We are the original storytellers’ says Jojo Rabbit director after receiving award for winning best adapted screenplay

'We can make it here': Taika Waititi urges on Indigenous talent after Oscar win

“I dedicate this to all the Indigenous kids all over the world who want to do art and dance and write stories,” said Taika Waititi, the New Zealand filmmaker of the Nazi-era satire Jojo Rabbit, as he accepted his Oscar at Monday’s ceremony. “We are the original storytellers and we can make it here as well.”

Waititi had just become the first Māori filmmaker to win an adapted screenplay Oscar, for Jojo Rabbit, which he adapted from the 2008 novel Caging Skies. Waititi also directed the film and starred in it as a bumbling, comedic Adolf Hitler.

Jojo Rabbit tells the story of a 10-year-old German boy named Jojo, a member of the Hitler youth whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler himself, who discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in the family’s home.

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A beaming Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, began her weekly press conference by congratulating Waititi.

“I know we’re all incredibly proud of him,” she said. “I don’t see many movies but I’ve seen that one, and not many people could pull off an amazing film like that.”

Christine Leunens, the author of the novel that Waititi adapted, told the Guardian after the ceremony that those behind the film were “about to have a well-needed drink.”

“I feel that Taika took the message of the story and he put notes of hope and humour to bring it to a contemporary audience, offering a message that the story has become relevant again today,” she said of the filmmaker’s interpretation of her “careful” historical novel.

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Leunens said the film showed moviegoers that “we have a choice, are we going to go back to this kind of thinking ... superior, inferior ... or are we going to move on and bring more love and compassion to our relationships?”

She had scrutinised Waititi’s work when she had learned that he wanted to option the rights for the film.

“There was something very distinctive, tragedy and humour,” she said. “Living in New Zealand, I find that the Māori have such a wonderful sense of humour, and such warmth and such inclusivity.”

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Ella Henry, a commentator on the Māori screen industry based at Auckland University of Technology, said although the tale was not on its face an Indigenous one, Waititi had told it in a way that was in keeping with Māori storytelling traditions.

“If you look at the way Taika’s films have evolved to use humour and pathos to express trauma, he elevates survival by bringing that pathos and humour and resilience to those stories,” she said. “So I would say it’s a very Māori story.”

Jojo Rabbit was also nominated for the Academy Awards’ prestigious best picture category; the film also received nods for best adapted screenplay, film editing, costume design, production design and best supporting actress for Scarlett Johansson, who plays Jojo’s mother.

Henry said Waititi was bringing attention to Māori creators – but he was more than just a visible figure in the film industry.

“He brought his Indigenous sensibilities to it by asking producers to ensure there were Indigenous trainees in every department,” she said of Waiti’s work directing the Marvel film Thor: Ragnarok.

In 2005, Waititi received his first Oscar nomination for the short film Two Cars, One Night.