Takahoa started because a group of young creatives decided to back themselves and see what happened. When we launched our first crowdfunding campaign, we had no idea how many people would believe in us. You did. Because of your support, we raised $40,000 and were able to take an idea that had lived in our heads and turn it into a real series. We shot all five episodes of Takahoa Season One in just five days, surrounded by an incredible cast and crew who poured everything they had into it.
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Since then, Takahoa has grown far beyond what we could have imagined. The series has reached thousands of people on YouTube and tens of thousands more across TikTok and Instagram, with audiences discovering Takahoa both here in Aotearoa and overseas. We’ve also been incredibly proud to have the series selected for and nominated at festivals including New Jersey Web Fest, Marseille Web Fest, Universal Film Festival and the Web Series World Cup. For two emerging filmmakers making their first series, that recognition has meant the world to us. More importantly, it has shown us that there is an audience for the stories we want to tell.
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Season One also taught us a hell of a lot. It was our first time taking on a project of this scale and, honestly, we made plenty of mistakes along the way. But every mistake taught us something. We now understand our audience better, we understand production better, we understand what it takes to actually get a series in front of people and, most importantly, we know what we’re capable of. We know we have stories worth telling and that people want to see them.
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Now we want to take everything we learnt and make something even bigger.
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We are working towards securing funding from NZ On Air to make Takahoa Season Two, and community support is a huge part of that process. Every donation made through this page can be put forward as part of our funding application, helping demonstrate that there is a real community behind Takahoa and that people want to see this story continue. The more we are able to raise, the stronger our position becomes and the more likely we are to get the chance to make Season Two.
Everyone who donates will become a Takahoa Angel Investor and will be thanked in the episode credits. It’s our way of recognising the people who believe in what we’re making and help us take that next step.
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But your support goes beyond just Takahoa.
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One of the biggest things we want to achieve with Season Two is creating more opportunities for emerging creatives in Aotearoa. We want to work with New Zealand musicians, designers, artists, filmmakers and other young creatives and give them a platform to showcase what they can do. The world of Takahoa is built from the people around us, and we want Season Two to reflect the incredible creative community that exists here. Supporting this project means helping create real work, experience, credits and opportunities for people who are still finding their feet in the industry.
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And then there’s the story itself.
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Takahoa Season Two follows Marley, a young queer woman from West Auckland who is trying to navigate fractured friendships, family, love and the complicated question of where she actually belongs. While Season One explored creativity through art, Season Two is putting music at its heart. Music becomes Marley’s outlet for everything she struggles to say, carrying her through moments of joy, anger, loneliness and heartbreak as the relationships around her begin to unravel.
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Through Marley, we’re exploring avoidant personalities, chosen family versus biological family, queerness, fractured friendships and the everyday reality of casual racism. It’s a story about people who love each other but don’t always know how to communicate, about the families we are born into and the ones we build for ourselves, and about what happens when the things we’ve been avoiding finally catch up with us.
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Season Two is also bigger. We’ve taken everything we learnt from making our first season and pushed it further. The episodes will be longer, the world will be bigger and we’re bringing even more emerging creatives into the process. We already have the scripts. We have the team. We have the experience. We know what we want to make.
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We just need the people behind us to make it possible.
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Takahoa Season One exists because you believed in us when we were just two young creatives asking people to take a chance on an idea. That support changed what we were able to do, and it has taken us further than we ever imagined when we started.
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Now we’re asking you to help us take it even further.
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If you believe in Takahoa, believe in emerging New Zealand creatives, or simply want to see more queer stories from Aotearoa made by the people who live them, we’d love for you to become a Takahoa Season Two Angel Investor.
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All we need now is you.