We need to start seeing the world through a mother’s eyes. This is what Miki Magasiva learned while making his directorial debut, Tinā, a heartwarming Samoan-New Zealand drama that has already become the sixth-highest grossing Kiwi film in history.

“The key is in the title – Tinā means mother in Samoan. Formally in our culture, mothers raise the village’s children, not just their biological children. There’s something special in that – that our mothers don’t see race, don’t see culture, they just see children,” he says.

“Wouldn’t it be amazing, in the culture and environment we’re in now, to see the world the way mothers do? Where we don’t see race any more, we just reach out if somebody is in need.”

Mareta Percival, the face and heart of Tinā, sees the world this way. Played by Anapela Polataivao (The Rule of Jenny Pen), Mareta loses her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, quits her job at a local Samoan school and falls into relative seclusion. A few years later, still overwhelmed by grief, she begins work as a substitute teacher at an elite, mostly white private school, where she starts a choir that becomes a refuge for struggling students.

It’s a story about the universal need for a guiding figure paired with a firm, but loving, hand. As a mother herself, Polataivao says she found playing a character like this almost instinctual.

“It’s something you kind of just naturally possess once you have a child,” she says. “I’ve grown up with lots of incredible women, my mum and my aunt included. They are real straight-talking, no-nonsense, no beating around the bush kind of women, so it’s an intrinsic thing.”

Others on set felt the same way, drawing on memories of their own maternal figures – strong women who seemed to single-handedly hold their families together.

“It’s not just Samoan culture,” says Beulah Koale, who plays Mareta’s nephew and social worker in the film. “In most cultures, mothers are the top tier of the family … Put any mum in front of any big island man, and they will crumble because of the amount of respect we put on all mums.”

One particular line in the film captures this perfectly. In an attempt to get her rowdy choir back in line, Mareta whips out a jandal (Kiwi slang for a flip-flop), warning them they’ll “get the jandal” if they’re not careful. “With love, of course,” she quickly adds.

The film’s focus on the tough-but-loving mother is clearly paying off. In less than two months, Tinā has become the widest release ever for a New Zealand film, screening at 128 locations across New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Samoa. It has also become one of the top 10 highest grossing New Zealand films ever, earning nearly $8 million to date. This takes it ahead of hits like What We Do in the Shadows and cult classics such as Footrot Flats.

There’s more to the film than just motherhood, though, Magasiva says. If Mareta is the heart of Tinā, music is the soul. The story is inspired by a real-life high school choir in Auckland, Choralation Choir, which Magasiva came across on YouTube in 2013. Their performance of a traditional Samoan arrangement at a choral competition called The Big Sing went viral online, a performance that brought Magasiva to tears.

“I felt so emotional, I could feel it right in my heart,” he says. “It brought me an overwhelming sense of pride. There’s something magical about the experience of music – it’s a way of communicating that’s unspoken. Musicians connect through the frequency of music, they can see each other’s turmoil and struggles without having to say the words.”

Though no longer a singer himself, Magasiva says it was important that the singing in the film was as authentic as possible. So, with the help of two well-known New Zealand choirmasters, they assembled a cast of singers from the New Zealand Secondary School Choir and the Auckland Youth Choir.

Music is what ultimately connects Mareta to the students at the elite school, young people whose lives initially seem a million miles from her own. It’s the connective tissue that bridges the gap between Samoan and New Zealand culture, and what ultimately gets the students wearing lavalavas (a traditional Samoan skirt) and entering the classroom saying “talofa” (“hello” in Samoan). Sharing these elements of Samoan culture, among others, was vital for everyone involved in the production of Tinā.

“Growing up as a Samoan in New Zealand, we were always told not to forget who we represent, who our parents are,” Polataivao says. “We come in as a village, and when you’re in, you belong to the whole village … Sia Figiel [a Samoan author] writes ‘I is we always’ in her book Where we once belonged. That’s always been the thing for us.”

Samoans need more of their stories told on screen, she says. While she celebrates Tinā’s success so far, she knows it can’t stop here.

“How long do we need to wait and how many hoops do we need to jump through for another one? We need these stories to guide us, to support us … My auntie says they’re lessons for us – we’re feeling, we’re thinking, and we’re being questioned while watching.”

Beulah Koale agrees, adding that he hopes their film makes it easier for the next Samoan filmmaker who decides to bring more Pacific culture to the silver screen. “Miki faced a lot of challenges making this film, but the drive for our people, the drive to teach other cultures, love through our culture, is what makes us want to do it. There’s no money or goal in mind. It’s just the fact that we’re trying to use our culture to show love to everyone.”

Now that the film is out in the world, Koale says it no longer belongs to those who made it, but to all the people it represents. He remembers a recent red carpet appearance, when 10 Samoan mothers dressed in traditional gowns gently pushed to the front of the line, proudly saying, “This is our movie; we’re going to take a photo with our sons.”

These “little wins” mean more to the Tinā team than any box office success, Magasiva says. It reminds them that they accomplished what they set out to do – to show the world through a mother’s eyes.

Tinā is in cinemas from May 1.

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