Interceptor (2018)

Interceptor is a documentary that traverses the waters of the Te Manukanuka O Hoturoa, the Manukau harbour in Auckland through underwater camera images, 16mm Whittner film and audio recordings. Manukau waterscapes, the day after heavy rain, reveal the compromised waters of Māngere inlet, and birds active in the mudflats around Puketutu island. Jason Johnston’s sound composition is based on stormwater recordings of the waters of the harbour and the pipe outflows. The audio track includes a reading from WAI 8 Report, the unsettled Treaty of Waitangi claim made by the Manukau Harbour (1985), of the kaitiaki (guardian) families of the Manukau read by Maree Sheehan. The film was also shaped by attending several meetings of the Manukau Harbour Restoration Society (MHRS) and documents one citizen who tests the waters. Te Manukanuka O Hoturoa receives much of Auckland's waste water, reprocessed into neutral fresh water. The vast Central Interceptor pipe under construction will discharge even more fresh water into the harbour, further contributing to desalination. In addition, unprocessed stormwater is still legally overflowed into the harbour. The film’s observational approach attends to nonhuman others in the textures of seawater and microbial matter in underwater flows. Differing cosmopolitical positions coexist uneasily; human and ahuman, the citizen scientist, activist, industry and infrastructure, and mana whenua voices.