Taika Waititi’s production company has signed on a group of Māori writers to work on three forthcoming projects about colonisation, according to reports.

Piki Films, the company run by Waititi and Carthew Neal, will embark upon two feature films and a TV series with the aim of putting “indigenous voices at the centre” of the creative teams.

Morgan Waru, who will head up development of the projects along with Neal, told Screendaily that casting choices would be made in a similar spirit.

“What’s important to us is making sure that every cast choice is driven by our ethos of authentic voices and making sure that those are championed,” Waru said.

“Globally, these calls for racial equality and reconciliation of the past are louder than ever. We feel so passionately about those stories, and we have the means and momentum to bring them to a global audience.”

The feature film projects will both be adaptations: the first of Tina Makereti’s novel The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke, about a Māori boy exhibited as a living “curiosity” in Victorian London.

Commenting on the adaptation, Makereti said: “It seems strangely timely to see this story developed into a film, as we witness the toppling of colonial statues and attitudes.”

The second project will involve transforming comedian and New Zealand TV regular Angella Dravid’s dark and deadpan stand-up comedy show Down the Rabbit Hole into a feature film. Down the Rabbit Hole traverses the comic’s experience of marrying a 46-year-old man she met in a chatroom at the age of 17 and running away to the UK, before finding herself doing a stint in prison. Dravid would adapt the show with noted screenwriter Briar Grace-Smith.

The third project involves a foray into crime drama with TV series Better the Blood, created by Michael Bennett and Jane Holland, the award-winning team behind 2018 telemovie In Dark Places.

Better the Blood follows a Māori detective on the hunt for an avenging anti-colonial serial killer. Bennett said the series would explore “the long-term scars of our brutal colonial history in the context of a visceral and popular genre”.

Piki Films was behind the recent blockbuster Jojo Rabbit, as well as earlier heartwarming hits Hunt for the Wilderpeople and The Breaker Upperers.

Directors have not yet been confirmed for the new projects. Filming dates are not yet set but the projects are expected to get underway in the near future.