Jeremy Leatinu‘u’s early practice was in performance, choreographing simple actions and movements in public that engaged with Māori and Pasifika understandings of the complex nexus of time, place, language and people. The clarity and simplicity of this early work is evident in the cinematic Te Whakawhitinga 2022, which gently engages its audience in a slowly unfolding story that interweaves history and experience, language and landscape, people and place.

Te Whakawhitinga follows the fictional journey of a young Māori man who enlists in the army, leaving his home and family farm in the far north to begin his military training in the south. In doing so, the film metaphorically traces a path between Rongomātāne (the Māori god of peace and agriculture) and Tūmatauenga (the god of war).