We Were Dangerous, directed by Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu, tells the story of three teenage girls, who are among a group of “waifs, strays, vagrants, whores and sexual delinquents”, most of them Maori, transported to a reformatory facility on a remote island in 1950s New Zealand. Nellie and Daisy are joined by well-to-do Lou and life on the island takes shape under the command of a devout Matron. But Matron’s faith in her “institutional safety net” becomes tyrannous and horrific as the authorities subject some of the girls to surgery in the dead of night.

It's a dark tale of colonial racism, punitive Christianity and misogyny but the film is as delightful as it is disturbing, a celebration of defiance and courage, hope, girlhood, and female friendships. Stewart-Te Whiu says it was “important to me that there is joy and humour in the film, because even in the darkness we find reasons to smile, laugh, and to find moments of love with those around us”.

We Were Dangerous beautifully navigates a course between lightness and the dark to make a cinematic tour de force, as we have come to expect from Piki Films, whose founders, Carthew Neal and Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok for Disney, Hunt For the Wilderpeople, What We Do In The Shadows, Boy) are executive producers. Industry legend Rima Te Wiata (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) plays the increasingly corrupted Matron.

Writer Maddie Dai says the girls are “the kind of funny, generous, irreverent women I grew up with: my sisters, cousins, aunts and peers. Additionally, I had a great-great-grandfather who was imprisoned on Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington, and that seemed interesting to me – both so close to civilisation yet entirely removed. I wanted to think about colonisation, removed from the initial act of subjugation when it is present in norms and institutions and in ourselves”.