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Hundreds of family videos and up to five years of research have gone into the making of a doco about the rugby legend.
A treasure trove of family footage helped the co-director of a new documentary about Jonah Lomu tell a fuller picture of his life.
Tongan-Kiwi filmmaker Vea Mafile'o was given access to hundreds of VCRs of Lomu as a young man growing up in Mangere, she says.
“His brother had collected as much tapes that were still left around. And so, were sitting on this treasure trove. I think I had like maybe 160 VCR tapes that I had to trawl through.
“It'd be funny because you'd be watching something great and then, oh, here's Dennis the Menace being recorded over.”
Lomu, which Mafile'o directed with Irish filmmaker Gavin Fitzgerald, draws on that archive footage to tell the story of the rugby super star who died 11 years ago at the age of 40.
Mafile'o admits she's no rugby fan, so Fitzgerald brought the story of Lomu’s sporting brilliance to the table while she explored her common Tongan heritage with the rugby great.
“He's [Fitzgerald] loved Jonah for ages, and he's always dreamed about making a film about Jonah. So, it made sense that he would hold the rugby story and narrative and dates and stuff. And then I would focus on the family, the cultural and the emotions of everyone on this film - because there's a lot of emotions.”
“The project has been long in the making and getting the rights to footage of Lomu’s professional achievements became mired in legal wrangling, she says.
“It has been a very, very difficult thing to navigate, there's multiple personalities, there's multiple legal situations.
“The thing is Jonah, he was a very uncomplicated person, but everyone around and every environment around him was highly complicated. It has been a very trying experience. I think I've been involved in the project for about five years, and nothing has come easy.”
Lomu’s intense dedication as a teenager to make the most of his extraordinary talents shone through in the film-making process, she says.
“There'd be stories about him as a teenager, a 14-year-old, up early in the morning with the the black rubbish bags around to keep the heat in training, and he's the only one out on the field running around.”
People overlook how hard the young Lomu worked to became the great he was, she says.
“He always just knew and had a drive and a bigger purpose, and I think, that's something that I think people just don't really understand that he did the mahi, he did the work, he's just not naturally talented, he actually was so dedicated, so young.”
That dedication paid off when he made his debut for the All Blacks at just 20, she says.
“He was essentially just a man-child, and his whole life was invaded, scrutinised, all the decisions that he had to make, I think it mentally really made quite an impact on him.”
And although he had a tendency to cut himself off from difficult situations, he was essentially well-grounded at that young age, she says.
“He could have gone totally the other way, the other direction, I think that's another thing, he wasn't like a big drinker, or got into super bad pastime activities, so I think he was able to kind of maintain it and keep it together as much as possible.”
Lomu’s kidney disease is explored in the film, how he continued to perform at top-flight even while having treatment, she says.
“He didn't tell anyone, and so here he was going through all of this, everyone has this perception about him that he's been a little bit lazy, not training hard enough… and then it's revealed, oh, actually, he just physically was at his limits, so that was a really interesting revelation for me, that everyone else around him just had no idea.”
Most people she spoke to who encountered Lomu tell the same story of a humble and kind man, she says.
“He's very nice, he's polite, he's genuinely kind, and I think, you know, that's what the spirit about him was, he was actually a really, really good dude.”
• Lomu will make its New Zealand debut at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland on August 1.
