Helping to get more rangatahi Māori interested in animation and design industries, the first class from the Māoriland MATCH programme are set to graduate today. The Māoriland film festival is run every year out of Ōtaki, a small town on the Kāpiti Coast. The five-day event hosts a number of Indigenous storytellers every year, with … Read more
Kewana Duncan, who made his film-writing and directing debut in the tele-film Toke, chats to Leonie Hayden about his career trajectory and how he’s keeping it tika. Kewana Duncan is a new face in the film and television landscape, but he’s no Johnny-come-lately. The writer and director first got his break storylining for Shortland Street … Read more
The Aotearoa-born, Los Angeles-based producer of What We Do in the Shadows and Jojo Rabbit is back home to direct her own film – and reconnect with the culture that made her, she tells Stacey Morrison. This story first appeared in Ensemble magazine Styling by Karen Inderbitzen-Waller Photography by Karen Inderbitzen-Waller and Delphine Avril Planqueel … Read more
Director Heperi Mita celebrates the success of his friend Taika Waititi, and explains what it means for Māori and indigenous creatives around the world. There was a moment during the 2020 Academy awards where I saw Taika Waititi, Chelsea Winstanley and Ra Vincent, and realised that in just one generation Māori filmmakers had gone from … Read more
Morgan Godfery tries to make sense of the last decade for Māori in te ao hurihuri, the changing world. Here he looks at the highs, the lows and the TBCs… Taika’s interesting world There are three roads out of Opotiki, the rural town where the Eastern Bay of Plenty becomes the East Coast. You can … Read more
The great filmmaker Barry Barclay (Ngati, The Kaipara Affair) also wrote books on Māori screen arts and philosophy. Miriama Aoake delved back into Mana Tūturu: Māori Treasures and Intellectual Property Rights, in which he reimagines Captain Cook’s landing in Aotearoa if cameras were present. Two hundred and fifty years ago, a white man from England … Read more
Professor Leonie Pihama on the unique values and perspective filmmaker Merata Mita brought to the screen, and how it changed how we see ourselves. “The way I see it, if you’re a Māori woman and that’s all you are, that alone will put you on a collision course with, that society and its expectations. And … Read more
Merata Mita created groundbreaking films during some of the most divisive moments in New Zealand history, earning her a reputation as a pioneer overseas and a trouble maker at home. Nine years after her death, her son Hepi Mita has made a documentary about the immense legacy she left behind. Hepi Mita (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāi … Read more
Film is a powerful influence in our lives that shapes how we see the world, and how we see ourselves. So it’s pretty important that we see people that look like us up on the big screen. New Zealand has an incredible film history – dark, funny, innovative, evocative of our past and peculiar worldview. … Read more
Activist, actor and advocate Anzac Wallace has passed away yesterday at the age of 74. Anzac Wallace (Ngāpuhi) is lying in state at Ngā Whare Waatea marae in Māngere, the urban marae he helped build in the 1980s. Ngā Whare Waatea chairman, Minister Willie Jackson paid tribute to Matua Zac Wallace last night, describing him … Read more
With actor Jason Momoa putting his problematic interpretation of haka on the world stage during the press tour for Aquaman, Tina Ngata revisits some of the myths and misunderstandings about Māori as a ‘warrior race’. “The notion of a warrior gene as a scientific fact is actually based on the history of a scientific and cultural … Read more
A new film following five courageous families healing in the wake of suicide premieres at the NZ International Film Festival this month. Kayne Peters meets the Albert whānau of Maui’s Hook. Content warning: suicide. Suicide is a topic many Kiwis shy away from but the reality is, every three days a young New Zealander takes … Read more
A series of Māori Futurist events take place this weekend (July 6-8) at Ellen Melville Centre in Auckland’s CDB. Self-identified ‘Space Māori’ Dan Taipua picks out some highlights from the schedule. In a few hundred years time the world will be washed into a new shape. Today’s islands will have disappeared from the the light … Read more