PACIFIC ALLIANCE ESTABLISHED
Leo Koziol (Wairoa Maori Film Festival), Alex Lee (Doc Edge), Mareva Leu (FIFO Tahiti) and Cory Tong (representing Hawaii International Film Festival).
The PADISA Pacific Alliance for Documentary and Interactive Storytelling was established today in Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, New Zealand.
Present were representatives of Doc Edge, FIFO Tahiti, HIFF Hawaii and Wairoa Maori Film Festival. Also part of PADISA will be Annu Aboro New Caledonia, PICCOM Hawaii, Nga Aho Whakaari, PIFT NZ and Antenna Documentary Film Festival ( Australia).
Mauri Ora to Alex Lee and Dan Shanan of DocEdge who lead this initiative.
Wairoa Maori Film Festival is proud to support and be a part of this kaupapa!
MANA WAHINE AWARD 2015
PRESS RELEASE: From Women in Film & Television New Zealand, Tamaki Makarau, 13 May 2016
In 2016, Wairoa Māori Film Festival and Women in Film & Television (NZ) Inc. will be conferring the WIFT Mana Wāhine Award on two recipients, who have extensive careers in film, theatre and television, who are both trail-blazers as Māori women writers, actors and directors, and who have worked tirelessly for decades to support and nurture other Māori in film and television.
The awards will be presented at the Wairoa Maori Film Awards Gala Evening at the iconic Gaiety Theatre, Wairoa, on Saturday 4 June.
The WIFT NZ MANA WAHINE AWARDS FOR 2016 are jointly awarded to Nancy Brunning and Rachel House for their prolific contribution to theatre and film, both in front of and behind the camera. Rachel and Nancy exemplify what it means to be Mana Wāhine and the committee strongly felt that both women needed to be awarded with this honour to acknowledge the long and very active contribution both have made to the burgeoning industry. In a year where female participation in film is looked at with scrutiny, Nancy and Rachel give stand out lead performances in two of the year’s most successful films and that on its own deserves celebration.
Rachel House: Rachel has acted in some of New Zealand’s most critically and commercially successful films, including Whale Rider, Eagle vs Shark, Boy, White Lies, Dark Horse and this year, a starring role in ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’. Graduating from Toi Whakaari in 1992, House won the Chapman Tripp Most Promising Female Newcomer of the Year Award for her performance in the one-woman show Nga Pou Wahine in 1995. In 2002 she won Most Outstanding Performance for critically acclaimed Woman Far Walking and in 2003 Best Supporting Actress in An Enemy of the People. House has directed several theatrical performances, winning the 2001 Director of the Year awards at both the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards and the New Zealand Listener Awards for her direction of the play Have Car Will Travel. In 2012 House directed the Māori-language version of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, performed at London's Globe Theatre. House attended the Prague Film School, 2007-2008. Her film-directing debut short, The Winter Boy, screened in New Zealand and other international film festivals. In 2012, House was made a NZ Art’s Laureate.
Nancy Brunning: Nancy has an extensive career acting in film, theatre and television, as a director for stage and screen, and acting coach, for Oscar-nominated short film ‘Two Cars One Night’. Nancy graduated from Toi Whakaari in 1991 and in 1992 she won the award for Most Promising Female Actor at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards for the play Ngā Wahine. She also became one of the best-known faces on New Zealand television in the role of Nurse Jaki Manu in ‘Shortland Street’. Nancy has performed in diverse productions, from the play Hide n’ Seek, which toured New Zealand and Australia, to the ‘Once Were Warriors’ sequel, ‘What becomes of the broken hearted’. A speaker of Te Reo Māori, Brunning has also worked as a theatre director, cultural advisor and script consultant. She received a Best Actress nomination at the 2009 Qantas Film & TV Awards for her role in the movie Strength of Water. In 2008 Brunning directed the short film ‘Journey to Ihipa’, which screened at film festivals in New Zealand, Vladivostok and New York. This year, Nancy played a leading role in the Lee Tamahori directed film ‘Mahana’.
The WIFT Mana Wāhine Award recognises and supports the achievements of Māori Women in film and television who work tirelessly, diligently and with vision to support and promote Māori culture, Te Reo Māori, Tikanga Māori and the welfare and stories of wāhine. The Award was first initiated in 2011 by Wairoa Māori Film Festival director Leo Koziol and his mother Huia Koziol.
Tickets for the Awards Gala and Film Festival can be booked at Eventfinder
http://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2016/wairoa-maori-film-festival/wairoa
The Wairoa Māori Film Festival screenings are held in Kahungunu Marae, Nuhaka, famed for featuring in scenes from John O’Shea’s BROKEN BARRIER in 1955, and at the reopened Gaiety Theatre in Wairoa. The Wairoa Māori Film Festival is sponsored by the New Zealand Film Commission, Te Matarae O Te Wairoa Trust and Wairoa District Council. The entire programme can be viewed online at www.kiaora.tv
About the Festival
“The Wairoa Maori Film Festival is a film festival like no other! Guests are welcomed in a traditional Maori powhiri welcoming ceremony, and can stay at the marae (in the cinema!) or at nearby Morere mineral springs, Mahia beach, or Wairoa township. The Festival prides itself on a laid-back and relaxed energy, a spiritual nourishment both on screen and off. It has a reputation for rich and sincere narratives presented in a gentle and healing marae space. It is also a collaborative space where film makers and creatives can connect; short film, documentary and feature dramatic projects have developed over a cup of tea in the marae, and some of these new works will be screening for the first time this year, at the 11th anniversary gathering.
On Saturday there will be a special Wairoa Maori Film Awards Gala evening, preceded by a first-ever screening of "Ukaipo Whenua" by Kararaina Rangihau (a local Tuhoe Waikaremoana film maker).
The Wairoa Maori Film Awards Gala is once again the centerpiece, with presentation of the WIFT Mana Wahine Award, keynote speaker Dr. Rangimarie Rose Pere, live musical performances by Melody McKiver from Canada, and a curated media art projection!” – LEO KOZIOL, DIRECTOR OF THE WAIROA MAORI FILM FESTIVAL
For further information please contact Patricia Watson, National Manager of WIFT NZ on 09
373 4071 or patricia@wiftnz.org.nz
KORERO KIRIATA!
KORERO KIRIATA IS LIVE! at www.ManaWairoa.com
Wairoa Maori Film Festival's Director Leo Koziol (Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Rakaipaaka) is now the host of a weekly radio show on Radio Waatea, Aotearoa. You can listen weekly at 10 am, Friday's, on Radio Waatea, or go to our new Blogcasting / Podcasting website at www.ManaWairoa.com!
BIG WEEKEND IN TORONTO
17th October 2015, Toronto, Canada: PRESS RELEASE
It's a big weekend in Toronto, Canada, as Maori and Pasifika films are profiled to audiences at packed houses at the imagineNATIVE film festival.
Screening on Sunday as part of the Masculine Moves Shorts Programme are NZ films OW WHAT by Mike Jonathon, TANIWHA by Mika Haka, and INC'D by Darren Simmonds and Rob Mokaraka.
"The Wairoa Maori Film Festival is proud to be a part of these films journey out into the world," says Festival Director Leo Koziol. "All three films screened at the Wairoa festival before going on their journey around NZ and world."
TANIWHA by Mika Haka in particular has had phenomenal success in its journey around the world, most recently being picked up to screen at the Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles.
http://www.rednationff.com
"We wish these films well in their continued journey, and as a festival we will continue to be a vehicle for the voices of our indigenous people to emanate out into the world," says the Wairoa Maori Film Festival.
ENDS
NATIVE DREAMING IN DENVER
PRESS RELEASE: Denver, Colorado, USA. October 13, 2015.
The Wairoa Maori Film Festival was proud to be a part of a festival of native dreaming in Denver, Colorado, this past weekend.
The Indigenous Film & Arts Festival (IFAF) of Denver is run by the International Institute of Indigenous Resource Management, headed by Merv Tano. At IFAF, Festival Director Leo Koziol presented a lecture on Maori cinema and 4th cinema, and introduced a collection of Maori films at the festival.
Mr. Koziol also participated in a one-day symposium on native food and gastronomy. "World leaders in the preservation of food culture were present," says Mr. Koziol, "Including the author of James Beard Award winning book 'SOUL FOOD' - Mr. Adrian E. Miller."
Present were the keepers of a traditional native Stone Soup from a village in Oaxaca, who met with the first commercial native restaurant in Denver, Ben Jacobs of Tocabe." (photo below). "Wairoa Maori Film Festival is now part of a global network working to promote and preserve indigenous food traditions."
It is hoped to include a programme of films on indigenous food at next year's Wairoa Maori Film Festival, occurring at Kahungunu Marae, Nuhaka, Wairoa from June 3 to 6 2016.
Board members of IIIRM include resource management expert Morris Te Whiti Love, Te Atiawa from Wellington and Chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust.
"Wairoa Maori Film Festival has found a new family in Denver," says Mr. Koziol. "Past guests of IFAF have included Natasha Keating, Witi Ihimaera and the late Don Selwyn. To reawaken the connection between Denver and Aotearoa is something Wairoa is very proud to be part of."
ENDS
THE OTHER MAORI FILM FESTIVAL
PRESS RELEASE: October 15 2015, Toronto, Canada
On the other side of the world this week, Maori and Pasifika film making is being feted and celebrated in style. The imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival is screening 16 different film and media works, many only recently premiered at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival and the New Zealand International Film Festival.
Wairoa Maori Film Festival is proud to be present and part of the imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival, and is co-presenter of THE PRICE OF PEACE by Kim Webby and Christina Milligan, screening on Friday night. THE PRICE OF PEACE only recently completed a tour of venues near Tuhoe country, including the Gaiety Theatre in Wairoa with special guest Tame Iti.
The Wairoa Maori Film Festival has also been helping and encouraging Maori and Pasifika film makers to enter their films into indigenous film festivals internationally. A new non-commercial distribution arm of the festival, Nuhaka Films, has distributed FOOTSTEPS by Lennie Hill and LAHAINA NOON by Christopher Kahunahana to the imagineNATIVE programme.
The Wairoa Maori Film Festival is also working with Mika and Mika Haka in the distribution and promotion of their media art works (including TANIWHA) and anti-bullying web series THE AROHA PROJECT. "Mika is a global champion for issues around racism, homophobia, bullying and whanau, and we are proud to help promote his works as they travel around the world."
Past winners of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival are featured at imagineNATIVE. INC'D directed by Darren Simmonds and produced by Rob Mokaraka won the Audience Awards for both Best NZ Short Film and Best Actor at the 2014 festival. OW WHAT by Mike Jonathon won the Best Actor Audience Award at the 2015 festival.
"Wairoa Maori Film Festival is proud to promote Maori film and Maori film makers, and are excited to be travelling with them on their journey around the world," says Festival Director Leo Koziol.
"There is in particular an exciting line-up of Pasifika short films this year, with MA by Nikki Si'ulepa and MOU PIRI by Karen Willams," says Mr. Koziol. "THE LAST SAINT by Rene Naufahu arrives in Toronto fresh from an award-winning reception at the Harlem Film Festival, where Beulah Koale won Best actor."
"In some ways, imagineNATIVE is the 'Other' Maori film festival on the other side of the world, a fantastic celebration of Maori and Pasifika film making amongst the talent of global natives from around the world," says Mr. Koziol.
The Maori Film Festival's director will also be watching out for works of excellence from international native film makers from Canada, USA, Sami Land, and elsewhere in the world, to curate for the next Wairoa Maori Film Festival occurring at Kahungunu Marae, Nuhaka, Wairoa, from June 3-6 next year.
ENDS
DATE SET: WAIROA MAORI FILM FESTIVAL 2016
Image: Rebecca Collins (Ngapuhi) TOHUNGA Cinematographer Jack Woon
PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The date time and venue for the Wairoa Maori Film Festival is LIVE!
Film makers and creative visionaries from around the planet are invited to an activation of native vibrations at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival 2016.
The festival will run from Friday June 3 to Monday June 6, at Kahungunu Marae, Nuhaka. It is hoped to also incorporate the newly opened Gaiety Theatre into all or part of the weekend, alongside a full weekend film hui at the marae.
The theme of the festival this year will be NATIVE VIBRATIONS with a unique collection of Rastafarian films out of Jamaica. "We hope to connect with the global Black experience out of communities like Harlem in New York and Trenchtown in Jamaica." says Festival Director Leo Koziol. There will be a night of Maori Reggae Music Fusion at the centrepiece of the festival to celebrate this theme.
Guests and participants of the festival will be invited to ACTIVATE YOUR NATIVE commencing a planetwide discussion on "What is Native?" in an age of multiculturalism and placelessness? As our native lands and resources become increasingly commodified, is our indigenous culture too merely another work to be traded on the open market in the world of film and cinema?
Discussions will take place across three strands: ILLUMInative - how spirit and connectedness and healing defines and affects who and how you are defined as as a native person; COLORnative - how your skin color and appearance defines and affects who and how you are defined as as a native person; and ALTERnative - how your personal relationships - across color, gender, tribe and culture - affect who and how you, your partner and your descendants are defined as a native person.
The New Zealand Film Commission has once again been confirmed as primary support sponsor of the 2016 Wairoa Maori Film Festival. "Film works are also planned to go on to other film festivals across New Zealand and internationally, including hopefully once again the hugely popular 'Nga Whanaunga' programme at the NZ International Film Festival," says Mr. Koziol.
NAU MAI! NAU MAI! HAERE MAI!!
TO AN ACTIVATION OF NATIVE VIBRATIONS
Announcing the Official Dates of the
Wairoa Maori Film Festival 2016
Kahungunu Marae, Nuhaka & Gaiety Theatre, Wairoa
Friday June 3 to Monday June 6 * Queen's Birthday Weekend
Maori Films * Annual Maori Cinema Hui * Art & Wananga
Call for Entries: Coming Soon on Film Freeway
ACTIVATE YOUR NATIVE
PRESS RELEASE: HAWAIIKI HOU - WORLD MAORI FILM FESTIVAL CONGRESS
Brent Reihana and Riika Lintola of the SYDNEY MAORI FILM FESTIVAL, a founder member of Hawaiiki Hou the World Maori Film Festival Congress.
31 MAY 2015, Wairoa, Aotearoa New Zealand: At the Maori Film Awards last evening, hosted at the Gaiety Cinema as part of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival, HAWAIIKI HOU - the World Maori Film Festival Congress was launched.
Former Wairoa Mayor Derek Fox announced the establishment of the World Maori Film Festival Congress. The newly established World Maori Film Festival Congress will connect cinematic art events in Nuhaka, Wairoa, Auckland, Sydney, Cairns, Rarotonga, Honolulu, Tahiti and New York City.
Events that are founder members of this network are:
Wairoa Maori Film Festival, a premiere signature Maori event hosted in Nuhaka and Wairoa annually by Te Roopu Whakaata Maori I Te Wairoa Inc. Sponsor include New Zealand Film Commission, Wairoa District Council and Te Matarae O Te Wairoa Trust.
Rarotonga Maori Film Festival: Wairoa Maori Film Festival is working together with Derek Fox and Jaewynn McKay of Woven Pacific. The Rarotonga Maori Film Festival will occur in the Cook Islands later this year as part of the 50th Anniversary of Cook Islands Independence, hosted by Aotearoa House.
Sydney Maori Film Festival, to occur in Sydney later this year. Hosted by Brent Reihana and Riika Lintola of the Sydney Maori Business Network, this is the third Maori Film Festival hosted in Sydney, Australia.
New York Maori Film Festival: Wairoa Maori Film Festival is working together with Sarah Smith of Mokoism to launch a joint venture New York Maori Film Festival for late 2015. Event partners are in discussions with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to host the Opening Gala for the New York Maori Film Festival, with a delegation of Maori film makers in attendance.
Representatives of three associate members of the World Maori Film Festival Congress were present and talked of their festival events which will share indigenous film content, including Maori, Hawaiian and Aboriginal Australian.
Jenny Fraser spoke of the SOLID SCREEN Screen Arts festival held in Innot Hot Springs, Queensland, and hosted out of Cairns, Australia. SOLID SCREEN hosted a gathering of global indigenous wahine in 2014, including Hiona Henare, film maker and member of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival Board.
Lennie Hill spoke of the T-Tahiti Maori to Maohi film festival, founded by himself and Tiairani Drollet LeCaill of Tahiti. T-Tahiti sponsored two Tahitian film makers to be in attendance at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival, and sponsored the T-Tahiti Wairoa prize that will see Tim Worrall, director of "Tits on a Bull" flying business class to Tahiti next year to the T-Tahiti film festival.
Louisa Tipene Opetaia spoke of the Aotearoa NZ Film Festival held annually at the Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawaii. Each year, NZ films are screened at the museum, including a selection of short films curated by the Wairoa Maori Film Festival.
This announcement was made a sold-out Gala Awards Dinner at the newly reopened Gaiety Cinema in Wairoa. Stark Raving production is looking to set up a film production house out of the Gaiety Cinema, including full post-production facilities. Stark Raving is based in Hong Kong and is associated with the Shaw Group of film studios, whose heritage go back to the era of Bruce Lee.
ENDS
Packed house at the Gaiety Cinema, Wairoa, for the Maori Film Awards.
PRESS RELEASE: MAORI FILM AWARDS 2015
MAY 31 2015: The newly reopened Gaiety Cinema in Wairoa hosted the Maori Film Awards Gala of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival last night.
The following awards were presented:
AOTEAROA SHORT FILM - BEST ACTOR (AUDIENCE AWARD)
TIMOTI TIAKIWAI – IN OW WHAT? BY MIKE JONATHON
AOTEAROA SHORT FILM - BEST ACTRESS (AUDIENCE AWARD)
MARIA WALKER - IN TITS ON A BULL BY TIM WORRALL
T-TAHITI PRIZE (RETURN BUSINESS CLASS FLIGHT TO TAHITI ON AIR TAHITI)
TITS ON A BULL BY TIM WORRALL
AOTEAROA SHORT FILM - BEST SHORT FILM (AUDIENCE AWARD)
TITS ON A BULL BY TIM WORRALL
WOMEN IN FILM & TELEVISION WIFT MANA WAHINE AWARD
CHELSEA WINSTANLEY
INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS PRIZE
BLACK PANTHER WOMAN - BY RACHEL PERKINS
MANA WAIROA AWARD FOR OVERALL BEST ENTRY & ADVANCEMENT OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS TO:
CONFESSIONS OF PRISONER T - THE TEINA PORA STORY - MICHAEL BENNETT
Keynote speaker was veteran film maker Gaylene Preston who also presented the WIFT Mana Wahine Award. Chelsea Winstanley was unable to attend, as she is six months hapu, but was able to send a Skype video for everyone at the festival.
Michael Bennett was present to accept the Mana Wairoa Award. He also invited lead investigator in the Teina Pora Case Tim McKinnell to the stage, where he received a standing ovation.
Over 100 people attended two Powhiri on Friday afternoon at Kahungunu Marae, followed by a night and two days of screenings at a packed marae.
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival and the 40th anniversary of the Maori Artists & Writers Hui in Wairoa in 1975, Saturday afternoon was given over to a roundtable discussion about the past, present and future of Maori film.
Speakers on the roundtable included academics Dr Davinia Thornley (Univ. of Otago), Deborah Walker Morrison (Univ. of Auckland) and Dr Ella Henry (AUT). Film makers part of the "Maori New Wave" spoke of their self-funded projects in gestation: Hiona Henare on Native in Nuhaka, Lennie Hill on Umbrella Man, Mark Ruka on Barcrawl, Nikki Si'ulepa on her Latin America travel diary, and Kim Hegan on 54 Ghandi Road.
On Sunday, films also screened at the Gaiety Cinema in Wairoa. The closing night is a "Bush Cinema" at Morere Hot Springs, ended a grand celebration of 10 years of the Maori Film Festival in Wairoa.
ENDS
DECOLONISING THE SPIRIT
DECOLONISING THE SPIRIT
By Leo Koziol, Festival Director, Wairoa Māori Film Festival
A curated collection of Maori Made and Maori Themed Shorts Films
Selection for Rochefort Pacifique Festival of Cinema & Literature 2015
Tihei Mauriora!
Ka Tangi Te Titi!
Ka Tangi Te Kaka!
Ka Tangi Hoki Ko Au!
The breath of life!
The Titi bird sings in the sea!
The Kaka bird sings in the forest!
The song and cry of life heralds to the universe!
Ko Leo Koziol taku ingoa
Ko Ngati Kahungunu te Iwi
Ko Rakaipaaka te Hapu
Ko Moumoukai te Maunga
Ko Nuhaka Te Awa
Ko Nuhaka Te Kainga
Ko Kahungunu Te Marae
Te Roopu Whakaata Maori I Te Wairoa i te Moemoea!
I am Leo Koziol of the Kahungunu tribe
My sub tribe is Rakaipaaka
My mountain is Moumoukai
My river and village is Nuhaka
My meeting house is Kahungunu Marae
There we live the dream every year of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival!
I bring with me here to Rochefort, France, Europe, the dreams and visions of our Maori people of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Tangata Whenua people of the land!
We celebrate Tangata Maori film making – stories of the collective culture of our islands and society that are identifiable as Maori, stories from our many tribes across our many islands, a people now collectively known in the modern western colonised world as Māori!
Every year for the past decade, we have gathered in Wairoa to screen and purview the best of new Maori film making – new storytelling on screen. We are fortunate in our country to have an arts positive agency in the form of the New Zealand Film Commission – and I acknowledge Witi Ihimaera, our esteemed fellow guest and board member of the commission – this commission funds on an ongoing basis film making and storytelling in our country and their record of support and funding for Maori tales in recent times is strong.
So this collection of short films is presented to you all here this week. Maori films that reflect what it means to be MAORI NOW – to be of FREE SPIRIT to celebrate the culture and traditions we hold dear, to be of ACTIVIST SPIRIT to reflect on the journey we have travelled in facing the challenge of our cultural colonisation, and to be of OPEN SPIRIT attuned to the deeper elements and heart of Papatuanuku – our great Earth Mother – and Ranginui – our great Sky Father!
My tribe is Ngati Kahungunu, and my village is Nuhaka. In the shadow of Moumoukai mountain our great ancestor Rakaipaaka settled, and we now are a proud and independent sub tribe in our hidden valley. Kahungunu was protagonist in one of Maoridom’s greatest love stories, he stole the heart of Rongomaiwahine from neighbouring Mahia and from this love our energy and stories was borne.
Our mantra in all of time has been Make Love, Not War. Kahungunu's children set forth into battle only reluctantly, and then often times for reasons of romance, not vengeance. Kahungunu's eldest son Kahukuranui set forth into battle to win the hand of the woman who would become his wife, Tu Teihonga, his task to bring her the man who had murdered her first husband. Kahukuranui succeeded, and a love was borne, and the first child of this love was Rakaipaaka, chieftain ancestor of my village.
From this seed that spread outwards came the story of Te Huki, who strategically married his children across the land to create a stronghold for Kahungunutanga. The story of Mahinarangi, who wooed Tainui chief Turongo with the scent of oiled Kawakawa leaves, bringing peace between two great warring tribes, and establishing the strong and culturally rich Ngati Raukawa tribe of today.
But my job here today is not to tell you stories and tales of my tribe (though I think very much they would make great films!). My job here today is to honour the stories and tales of other tribes, stories put onto screen in a selection of films screening this week at Rochefort Pacifique.
FREE SPIRIT
Before Aotearoa, came Hawaiiki. It is readily acknowledge by many that the shores of Rarotonga are where the many great canoe set off for Aotearoa, my line of ancestry coming from the Takitimu canoe, a canoe of Tohunga, of tapu (sacred) males who intermarried with those who came before (some of them their own relatives) to establish tribes from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South.
Maori film maker from Ngapuhi, Lennie Hill, independently funded and made FOOTSTEPS, a realisation on screen of an ancient story of the Cook Islands people, the people of Rarotonga and their many neighbouring islands. In the film, a young boy and his father are threatened by an enemy canoe, so they make chase to the nearest island where the father cleverly covers his son’s footsteps with his own, and then hides his son up a tree. Alas, the father is murdered and the son can only look by in silence and grieve his father's loss. He wraps his father's body in leaves and takes him out to sea, out to Tangaroa from whence he came. As they filmed this movie, the sacred fish of the Cook Islands people swam in, believed by people of this tribe to be the spirits of departed souls returning. Lennie Hill filmed this work on site on the island of Aitutaki, with untrained actors retelling a tribal story of their own people.
Rebecca Collins, also from Ngapuhi, translates a story in the inter-times, when Maori were beginning to be colonised and traditional TOHUNGA (shamen, witch doctor, spirit doctor) practices were beginning to be suppressed. A young boy is ill, a paean to the story of NGATI by the great rangatira of film making Barry Barclay. He lays in bed until one of the Aunties realises perhaps the Tohunga can help. The film is a window into another world and another time; the story, of Ngapuhi and of Hokianga, is told in the Hokianga, and the landscape and light of the place is still alive and on screen. The Tohunga comes, and we bea witness to a sacred spiritual practice, one which, as we learn at the end of the film, English colonising authorities were already taking actions to suppress.
These two films are windows into a world, a world now long gone. Because the writing was on the wall, and the march of colonisation was on its way.
ACTIVIST SPIRIT
The triple threat of land theft, religious conversion and cultural belittlement is explored in the next clutch of films.
In Richard Curtis’ AHI KA a young girl sets up camp to ward off and fool the surveyors. Following the principle of "terra nullis" (empty land) land surveyors of the time would peg out and claim ownership of land that had no demonstrable existence of residence. So, in a true story, a young girl sets up camp, lights a fire (the “ahi ka” or flame of occupation) and demonstrates a very early example of the Maori activist spirit.
In PUMANAWA and URU, both of our protagonists find the activist spirit in them to rebel against both Christianity and western cultural superiority.
In Poata Eruera’s PUMANAWA, Mere is deemed as unworthy of her deeply Christian husband, he asks God to forgive her for her "fallen" nature and so she runs away only to be symbolically crowned by thorns of a barb wire fence. Mere finds her spiritual strength to follow her true self in the ghost spirits of her ancestors that she constantly sees and honours by making traditional "Texas Bread." At the end of the film, this tradition continues with her daughter, and the circle is closed.
In Hiona Henare's URU, the character of Uru has turned her back on Maori ways and traditions. She has found the love of a white man, and her mannerisms and speech have been colonised, she belittles her sister’s use of the Maori language and activist belief in traditional culture, she has no interest in going along to the belittled "women's hui."
Then halfway through the film something turns. The death in childbirth of her handmaiden reminds URU of the time she lost her child in miscarriage, wandering lost in a dream in the forest she sees her past self where she is burying in ritual her lost baby, returning baby to papatuanuku the earth mother.
By the end she is transformed, in a literal water ritual she becomes the barefoot Maori woman activist at the end of the film, imbued with "Ihi" a force from outside of herself that deeply remembers who she is and where she comes from.
As an aside, Hiona Henare's URU is actually based on a real speech present to a Māori women’s welfare hui in the 1800s of Ngāti Kahungunu women, with the closing speech being the words of the speech presented in real life in the past. The outcome of this hui was the establish of the New Zealand Māori Women’s Welfare League dedicated to supporting women and families in health, welfare and care.
OPEN SPIRIT
I end this conversation with a discussion on three contemporary shorts, BUTTERFLY, INC'D and IN THE RUBBISH TIN. These three contemporary tales share the theme of struggling to retain a free and open spirit in the face of adversity and the challenges of modern life.
Young Kiri in BUTTERFLY is teenage and pregnant, we don't know who the father is, but it is hinted that it is her stepfather. Present day Kiri is pregnant and knows this new child will be redemption for her of "the one that got away" the baby they came in to her life but just wasn't meant to be.
Kiri is estranged from her family back home – her mother is white, so one assumes her birth father was Maori – so she finds solace and family in the Kapa Haka group. She is open and proud in spirit on the stage when she is performing the poi, she knows the one who cannot stay is inside her and she is proud.
That Kiri is able to open in spirit in the face of such adversity, proud that a little spirit dwells inside her as she performs on the stage, a spirit she knows is destined to leave, is a reflection of an ability to achieve a decolonisation of the spirit.
Alas the lead character in Riwia Brown’s IN THE RUBBISH TIN does not have the same ability to find strength in adversity. Pippa is a latchkey kid, left at home alone on the day of her birthday, she wanders the street until she finds she has to find shelter from the rain in – of all places – the rubbish tin. Yet the strength she finds in adversity is able to shine, the resilience of a child aware of the fear of the world – her only friend a dog-eared teddy bear – the sense is that Pippa will persevere and continue to see hope and light in the world.
The film is a highly collaborative work, the animation by the Pakeha Simmonds brothers, based on a short story by Apirana Taylor. INC’D isa another work of collaboration between Maori and non-Maori / Paheka film makers. It controversially took the Best Short Film – Audience Award at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival last year, and it is a work of film I would view as being a Pakeha film – a film that decolonizes the Pakeha spirit by holding a mirror up to the prejudices and conventions of present day mainstream NZ and Australian culture.
Gary is rich and successful, a corporate ladder climber working in Australia. He has to go home for his father’s tangi (funeral) and there the wero (challenge) is laid down:
Ko tenei te turangawaewae
Ko tenei to iwi
Ko tenei to marae
This is your land
This is your tribe
This is your marae
Gary must take a transformative step to acknowledge the handing down of the Rangatira (chiefly) line, and he does so by the receiving of the ta moko – the tattooing of the face in Maori tradition.
He returns to Sydney, and faces the consequence. His corporate bosses send him packing quickly out the door. But he can return to his people, to his forgotten daughter, to Aotearoa where ta moko is no longer a barrier to employment.
One imagines two other dream versions of this film. One, where, like a stock lawsuit drama – think “Philadelphia” or “North Country” or “Erin Brockovich” – Gary takes his court case to the human rights commission and wins his case to express his culture in the tradition of his people, and at the end of the film he gets a high powered CEO role at a Japanese corporation, where his new board are all tatted-up Yakuza chiefs.
The other, I imagine a young Maori Member of Parliament in the 1930s, still has a tattoo on his arm, goes to the Maori Committee Chambers in Wellington, and his wife absentmindedly only irons a short sleeve shirt. On a hot January Wellington day, the Chairman of the Committee – no doubt, an Englishman – says “Gentleman, I give you permission to remove your jackets,” such was the tradition of the time. The poor 1930s Gary is berated repeatedly, until mopping his heavy brow, he removes his jacket to a universal “gasp” from everyone in the room when they see his ta moko – on his arm.
The director and producer of INC’D have held up a mirror to Pakeha attitudes to Maori culture. Gary and other young successful Maori can wear Ta Moko with pride and respect, an outward reflection of the deep confidence held within. It’s the Pakeha culture – be it Invercargill, Auckland or Sydney – that needs to adjust and live within a bicultural (Aotearoa) or multicultural (Australia) framework for society to grow, and indeed, decolonize its spirit.
A coda – the Producer of the film, Ian Bowmer, made sure the Maori consultation on his film with Darren Simmonds was strong . This involved a script advisory with Brad Haami, and cultural consultation with Cyril Gilroy from the marae in Invercargill. The lead actor, Rob Mokaraka, made substantial input into the cultural storytelling of the film, and was tagged on as a Creative Producer.
CONCLUSION
The paradox of our age is that the more technology pushes us apart, the more it demands us to come together to remember the fundamentals of the communal experience. We can watch film as a stranger in a cinema or alone on a big screen television in isolation, but when we watch films collectively there is a different energy of purpose.
This energy of purpose is about embracing notions of community: be it the community of a small village such as Nuhaka, or the global village of indigenous film makers who flock to our festival each year. This energy of purpose is about embracing the indigenous frequencies that are a commonality between all peoples with a strong connection to the Earth and the Universe, to Papatuanuku and Ranginui.
Attune to these frequencies, and you can commence the process of decolonizing your spirit. Sit through a collection of Maori-themed short films, in all their postmodern diversity, and you find a slow awakening of both spirit and dreaming.
I spoke with Maori academic Dr Pat Hohepa recently about the people of French Polynesia and their fascination with Aotearoa. He said they see us – Maori of New Zealand – as a "Hawaiiki Hou," or a "New Hawaiiki." The collection of Māori directed and Māori themed short films presented in the collection here at Rochefort Pacifique tell us yes, Ka Pai, a New Hawaiiki is Borne.
- Leo Koziol, Ngati Rakaipaaka, Ngati Kahungunu
Rue Pierre Loti, Rochefort, France, March 2015