Entranced by the stars: Why Miriama Kamo flew to the coldest place on earth
Friday, 10 July 2026
As Miriama Kamo gazed up at the night sky in the frozen Antarctic winter, the stars began to dance.
Visiting the southernmost continent for her documentary film project Ranginui: Call of the Ice, the well-known journalist, broadcaster and author says she will always remember the thrill of witnessing her tohunga (expert) colleagues’ reactions to the celestial display.
Professor Rangi Matamua and language expert Mataia Keepa were with Kamo to explore the connections between mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), astronomy, culture, and science beneath some of the darkest skies on Earth.
“They were looking at the stars and discussing the night sky,” Kamo said.
“And then Rangi said, ‘Oh, look at those stars twinkling up there, they’re dancing, and that would normally indicate that a storm is on the way’.
“That was definitely a standout moment. On the way back … one of them said, ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star,’ and the other one said ‘Kei te haere mai te āwhā,’ which means ‘Here comes the storm’.”
The intersection of indigenous knowledge and Antarctic environmental science is the focal point of the new film, which Kamo produced alongside director Julia Sartorio. Its theatrical release coincides with Friday’s Matariki public holiday.
For Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga), the project took her to a part of the world she had never expected to visit.
“I had no interest previously in going, because all I could imagine was that it was going to be freezing cold, and I don't like the cold. And I’d also heard that on the first night, you have to dig an ice shelter and sleep in it, and I was like, ‘no’, but luckily I was spared that, because we went in winter.
Christchurch-born Kamo — one of New Zealand broadcasting’s best known faces and the former presenter of TVNZ’s Sunday programme — had a lightbulb moment after learning her friend Matamua was to become the first Māori academic to study the stars from Antarctica.
Kamo co-authored the 2022 book Matariki Around The World: A Cluster Of Stars, A Cluster Of Stories with Matamua — “that’s where the friendship really became amazing”— and realised the historic trip deserved to be documented in film.
“I was like, ‘I’ve got to come, this would be just the most amazing trip if only you see it’. So I said to him, ‘can I come and we’ll film it, and make a doco?’, and he said yes.”
Captured during winter last year, the project depicts Matamua’s continuation of the work of his renowned scholar grandfather, Pei Te Hurinui Jones.
“Rangi is following the words of his tīpuna, of his ancestors,” Kamo said.
“His grandfather said to him, ‘knowledge that isn’t shared isn’t knowledge, you need to share this mātauranga that our ancestors recorded about Matariki’.”
Filming during the polar winter demanded great expertise. Temperatures plunged to -50C, and prolonged darkness was required to capture the stars.
Relying heavily on “Kiwi ingenuity”, Kamo said director of photography Dominic Fryer managed to keep the cameras running in untested conditions — an effort that earned him the Best New Zealand Cinematography award at the Doc Edge Festival on July 1.
A winter expedition also meant a skeleton staff waiting for them at Scott Base, New Zealand’s Antarctic research station. About 200 people can be found there in the summer, but numbers were down to just 12 when the doco team arrived.
“We came along and increased it by a third,” Kamo said. “It made it quite a lovely intimate time. We got to know the staff and really got to enjoy the base.”
The dancing stars did however prove accurate, with a massive winter blizzard, together with a mechanical delay, extending their planned 10-day trip to nearly a month.
Aptly premiering on Matariki, the film will first be shown at Doc Edge in Auckland on Friday, with the theatrical version also on the documentary festival programme in Wellington and Christchurch.
Kamo will be there for each of those screenings, relishing the opportunity for a trip home to Christchurch to see the film open the city’s Doc Edge run.
She has lived away from Ōtautahi for decades but plans to one day redress that balance with a home in Rāpaki, in Lyttelton Harbour.
“I’ve lived in Auckland longer than I’ve lived in Christchurch, funnily enough, but Christchurch will always be home. And it’s not just because I grew up there, it’s because that’s where our marae is. We will eventually build near our marae on the pā there, and that’s where I’ll turn up my toes.”
Kamo currently devotes her time to making content — including the new documentary — writing books, MCing and speaking, and charity work.
Christchurch’s post-earthquake resurgence is “no surprise”, she said.
“That’s Cantabrians for you, it’s get your hands dirty, do whatever is needed, shoulders to the grindstone, practical people.”
Powered by “a real sense of creativity and innovation”, the resilience of those in her home town has produced something special, she said.
“There was a very dark period for a while there, and out of the rubble pushed through daisies, and there are tonnes of daisies springing up everywhere over that city.”
Four years after the Government formalised Matariki as a public holiday, Kamo describes the move as “one of the most magnificent things that’s happened in our country”.
Marking the mid-winter rising of the Pleiades star cluster and heralding the Māori New Year, in 2022 it became “the world’s first indigenous holiday”, she said.
With last year’s Antarctic expedition behind her and with her film about to be shown across New Zealand, Kamo is grateful she committed to flying south to the coldest, driest, windiest location on Earth.
“I can’t believe that I never wanted to go, because it’s the most incredible place.”
Ranginui: Call of the Ice premieres at Doc Edge in Auckland on Friday, before showing at the festival in Wellington on July 21 and opening the Christchurch leg of the festival on July 31. Information and tickets from docedge.nz.
Shorter versions of the film will air on TVNZ on Sunday morning at 9am and on RNZ at 10am on Monday.