March 23, 2023
Festival joyous celebration of indigenous film
The new director of the Maoriland Film Festival says it’s a great way to take a snapshot of Indigenous filmmaking.
The festival which wound up in Otaki on Sunday drew more than 100 Maori and Indigenous filmmakers from around the world.
Maddy Hakaraia-de Young says she’s looking forward to putting together next year’s programme after taking over from her aunt Libby Hakaraia.
She says in the 10 years she has worked for the festival in various roles it has grown from a small whanau project into a world-renowned showcase, and the capacity of the storytellers has also grown.
“Usually we have seen around 100 films, This year we bumped it up to 140 because we had that many submissions and all of them were good. We had everything from doco to sci-fi to horror to comedy, to romcom. It was just joyous,” Ms Hakaraia-de Young says.
Australian Aboriginal director and screenwriter Jub Clerc’s Sweet As was judged best feature film at the Maoriland Film Festival.
Hawaiian director Scott W. Kekama Amona’s E Mālama Pono, Willy Boy was judged best short drama, A Boy Called Piano, the autobiographical story of former state ward Fa’amoana John Luafutu took the best feature documentary tohu, and another Aotearao-made short, Plastic by Va’a Magalogo and Michelle Fatani, was best short documentary.