July 04, 2017
Resurgence of te reo Maori film making.
Maori screen producers are looking back on frontier breaking te reo films as inspiration on overcoming barriers to producing Maori language stories for film and television.
Auckland Art Gallery hosted the inaugural te reo Maori film festival over the weekend and according to Wairoa Film Festival curator Leo Koziol highlighted two film makers in particular as inspiration for today's producers.
"Well two of the more interesting films that we played were from the Aroha series back in 2001 and they were made by Melissa Wikare who so sadly passed away. It was refreshing to see how back in the day they weren't afraid to make full te reo Maori, fluent reo tv shows. It is a challenge today to do the same," he says.
Leo Koziol expects Maori language film festivals like the one in Tamaki Makaurau to be rolled out around the motu.
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