Client
DGEE
Year
2025
Deliverable
Animated short film
Role
Direction, Drawing, 3D modeling, Rigging and Animation
Māui — demigod, hero to some, thief to others. He’s been around the world since a Disney film pulled him out of his own legends.
What the film doesn’t say is that his hook is still up there, hanging in the sky. Westerners call it the constellation Scorpius. We Polynesians call it te Matau o Māui.
Before GPS, before maps, there were these stars. A hook-shape pinned to the night, showing the way to Polynesian navigators. For centuries, it’s what brought our ancestors home.
When the DGEE asked us to make a New Year’s video for 2025 — carrying the values of education and culture — we already knew where to start. We modeled Māui in the coolest way and we created his hook in 3D, exactly as it appears in the constellation, star by star.