June 30, 2022
Drover’s Wife director for Maoriland residency
An Australian Aboriginal playwright, novelist and filmmaker is to be the first Maoriland filmmaker in residence.
Molly Purcell’s award-winning feature The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson opened the 9th Māoriland Film Festival in Ōtaki last night.
It’s based on a short story by Henry Lawson published around 1892, which she retold from an Indigenous woman’s perspective.
Festival director Libby Hakaraia says the Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka woman is a groundbreaker for Indigenous filmmakers and especially for Indigenous women.
As well as turning the story into a play, novel and film, Purcell is also working on a drama series and an opera.
Purcell and her husband, producer Bain Stewart, were in Otaki for the screening, and she will return in September for the residency, which is in a refurbished villa atop the Māoriland Hub.