Matariki Seven Fires Cinema Showcase 2016
MAORI & INDIGENOUS FILM DAY

Join us for the first ever Matariki Seven Fires Cinema Showcase, an international indigenous cinematic showcase with films and experimental works from Aotearoa, Samoa, USA, Canada and Australia. Presented by the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in association with Asinabka Film & Media Art Festival (Ottawa) and Solid Screen (Cairns).

“The title Seven Fires is very appropriate, as it references the 7 filmmakers in the program, but is also reminiscent of the Anishinaabe Prophecy of the Seven Fires. Seven Fires in Ojibwa is: Niizhwaswi-Ishkode.” – Asinabka Film & Media Art Festival

“In a world in turmoil, we as Maori look to the light of the seven sisters of Matariki, and reflect on our global indigenous collective consciousness in sharing this time and creative works with our Anishinaabe brothers and sisters.” – Wairoa Maori Film Festival

11 am 100 TIKIS Dan Taulapapa McMullin 45 min USA An Appropriation Artpiece

12 pm WAIROA PRESENTS “MATARIKI” “SEVEN STARS”

Taniwha - Mika
Mokihi - Ratu Tibble
Mrs Mokemoke - LI Gent Xin
Tohunga - Rebecca Collins
Tits On A Bull - Tim Worrall
Netta Jones - Rachel Wills
Tawhiti - Tamati Ihaka

1.30 PM ASINABKA PRESENTS “SEVEN FIRES” “NIIZHWASWI-ISHKODE”

Ga Waabmin Gaye - Melody Mckiver (With Live Musical Accompaniment)
Edmazinbiiget - Christian Chapman (With Live Musical Accompaniment)
Rattlesnake - Kelvin Redvers
Mobilize - Caroline Monnet
Call And Response - Craig Commanda
Status - Howard Adler
Without Words - Jules Koostachin

3 PM SOLID SISTERS (Documentary) by Jenny Fraser (Australia) 45 mins

Jenny Fraser hosted indigenous wahine film makers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada in her home country in 2014. This is the story of this gathering, and of a movement.

Preceded by:
Under The Heavens (Tyrik Washington) 8 min USA

DETAILED SYNOPSES:

100 TIKIS Dan Taulapapa McMullin 45 min USA An Appropriation Artpiece

In conjunction with Wairoa Maori Film Festival, Auckland City Art Gallery is pleased to present the NZ premiere of 100 Tikis, the latest work by Hudson, New York-based artist Dan Taulapapa McMullin (Samoan). 100 Tikis is an appropriation art piece that interrogates Western (and Eastern) colonialism of the Pacific Islands peoples from Hawaii to West Papua, through an examination of tiki kitsch, tourism, militarism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and the genocide of indigenous peoples. 

“We’re proud to present this multimedia moving image art work in what is ostensibly a cinematic context. We present it with the kind permission of the artist, as an intriguing social critique, and as a work in progress.” – Leo Koziol,

Wairoa Maori Film Festival
WAIROA PRESENTS “MATARIKI” “SEVEN STARS”

“Te Ao Mai Nga Whatu Maori” – the world through a Maori lens, seven works all directed or produced by film makers of Maori descent.

TANIWHA
Director Mika (Maori) NZ 3 min 2015
We open with waiata from Māori magician Mika, another divination, an expression of the spirit of Taniwha!

MOKIHI
Director Lennie Hill, Writer Ratu Tibble 2014 4 min
A man stands on the shore. His destiny awaits.

MRS MOKEMOKE
Director Li Gent Xin, Producer Tia Barrett (Maori) NZ 9 min 2015 MATURE CONTENT
Mrs Mokemoke loves her husband, but he’s more interested in her inheritance. A mind-expanding mashup of Lindauer portraits, silent-era storytelling, film noir and Kubrickian intrigue.

TOHUNGA
Director: Rebecca Collins Producer: Rebecca Collins, Marie Thompson Duration: 8 minutes 2015
When a young child falls ill, a family turns to a tohunga (healer) for help. Unknowingly, a young girl bears witness to a world never meant for her. Meditative moments of painterly imagery disguise a serious message.

TITS ON A BULL
Director Tim Worrall (Maori) NZ 16 min 2015
The star player of a Māori women’s rugby team must choose between loyalty to her coach and love for her teammate.

NETTA JONES
Director Rachel Wills (Maori) NZ 12 min 2015
During WWII, as Awanui is on high alert fearing a Japanese invasion, 16-year-old Netta falls for a Māori soldier stationed there.

TAWHITI
Director Tamati Ihaka (Maori) NZ 13 min 2016
Tawhiti is a Maori Language Sci Fi Relationship Drama.
Ruanui has returned from Mars but instead of settling down like he promised, he tries to convince his wife and daughter to return with him to start a new life on Mars.

ASINABKA PRESENTS “SEVEN FIRES” “NIIZHWASWI-ISHKODE”

Ga Waabmin Gaye/Nemolnek Elt Ni’nen
Melody McKiver (Anishinaabe) • 4:00 • 2014 • Canada • No dialogue Live Score Presentation
In a study of Indigenous identity and belonging, this experimental short documents the filmmaker’s creation of Anishinaabe and Mi’Kmaw language-based graffiti art in rural landscapes, in both Northern Ontario and Eastern Canada.

Edmazinbiiget
Christian Chapman (Anishinaabe) • 10:58 • 2014 • Canada • No dialogue - Live Score Presentation
Edmazinbiiget, (Anishinabe for he/she who draws), played by Vov Abraxas (Oji-Cree), was shot entirely in Chapman’s community of Fort William First Nation on Super 8 film. It is a fictitious narrative about a secluded recluse who lives off the land with a need to create art, at a time when the Woodland Style of art was in its infancy.

Rattlesnake
Kelvin Redvers (Deninu K'ue First Nations) • 18:00 • 2015 • Canada • English
A little girl is left alone after her father is bitten by a rattlesnake and dies. She's left to face the loss of her father, while figuring out how to survive.

Call and Response
Craig Commanda (Anishinaabe) • 05:17 • 2014 • English
Expressing an internal struggle of identity and belonging, this film connects the filmmaker’s practice of contemporary music, with traditional Indigenous music.

Mobilize
Caroline Monnet (Algonquin) • 2:48 • 2015 • Canada • No dialogue
At once a history project and a call to action, Mobilize mashes up images of Indigenous labour from the far north to the urban south. Featuring a haunting score by contemporary Inuit throat singer, Tanya Tagaq.

Status
Howard Adler • Canada • 7:44 • 2014 • English
In Canada, Status Cards are a race-based classification system which define who qualifies as an "Indian". Status Cards were first issued in 1956, they are an identity document issued by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) to confirm that the cardholder is registered as a Status Indian under the Indian Act (the Indian Act is a federal law first passed in 1876, it is highly invasive and paternalistic as it gives Canada's federal government exclusive authority to govern over "Indians and Lands Reserved for Indians"). Investigating the connections between surveillance, identity, and genocide, this short documentary titled "Status" will ask cardholders: What is a Status Card? What does your Status Card mean to you? And do you know what the numbers on your card mean?

Without Words
Canada 2015 Director/Writer Jules Koostachin 16 mins
Without Words speaks to the collective experience of trauma and hope regardless of cultural identity, it is a story about two survivors, one of the Holocaust and the other a survivor of the Canadian Residential school system crossing paths at a city park in Northern Ontario. Their stories of resilience, survival and hope interweave sparking the journey of healing to commence.

SCREENS BEFORE "SOLID SISTERS"
Under The Heavens (Tyrik Washington) 8 min USA
The American dream becomes a nightmare due to the recent killings of several unarmed black American citizens by the police for Rahkeem; a frustrated African- American adolescent from Brooklyn, New York. In his quest for justice, he becomes vulnerable to questionable spiritual guidance.

Tyrik “Keyz” Washington is a six-time NY EMMY award nominee and 2014 EMMY award winning producer. Director of two-feature films, “The Class Reunion” (2012) and “Under The Heavens: Epilogue” (2017), along with two short films, “Under The Heavens” (2015) and “The Power of Knowing” (2013), which was released and now available on iTunes. Tyrik was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Hails from a diverse family of community activist, musicians, actors, and academic scholars. Tyrik is a self-taught music prodigy, who began to explore his musical talents at the age of three. A proud 1998 graduate from The Juilliard School Of Music (MAP) and a product of the black Pentecostal musical experience, mixed with the best of Jazz and Brooklyn, Hip Hop greatness, which has help find his calling through the arts.