Māoriland Film Festival: 'Drawing into their whakapapa' to tell stories 'from their heart'

Through the eyes of young indigenous masterminds to the big screens, an array of cultures has descended on Ōtaki for the annual Māoriland Film Festival.

The five-day festival is said to be the world's largest celebration of indigenous storytelling, this year's is the biggest one yet with ticket sales surpassing the previous year's one week out from the start of the event.

With the diversity of screenings, interactive installation, and art exhibitions come the creatives behind the scenes. Of them were 37 rangatahi from more than 80 indigenous nations from around the globe.

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Since the birth of the film festival 12 years ago, Māoriland has been running rangatahi workshops around the motu through their Te Uru Maire strategy.

Māoriland Film Festival director Madeleine Hakaraia De Young (Ngāti Kapu) said it underpins everything they do at Māoriland.

With that strategy, they run a kaupapa named 'Through Our Lens' where rangatahi Māori filmmakers connect with rangatahi taketake (young people from other cultures) and collectively make films together.

"We have grown this massive rōpū of rangatahi storytellers, both here at home in Aotearoa, but with connections to their whanaunga across the world. What's exciting is being able to say, we talk about our screen industry being fairly young in comparison to other nations and they're sort of pinholing of what a Māori film or an indigenous film might be.

"But as we grow, we're able to tell more and more stories and tell them in different ways and tell our own perspective of things so that we have a kōrero with our films, rather than being the one person standing out by yourself trying to do it on your own."

What separated the indigenous from the 'general' point of view, was the deepened understanding for one's background, Hakaraia De Young explained.

"Our indigenous storytellers are drawing into their whakapapa, they're drawing into their whenua, their communities. They're telling stories that come from their heart and from their whānau. And they're doing it in a really interesting way.

"So, you're not necessarily seeing stories that you've heard before, or you're not necessarily seeing people that you've seen on screen before. And that adds to this richness which brings people to indigenous film."

The young director has been in her role for two years, however, her whānau is embedded in the origins of Māoriland.

Her aunty and uncle Libby Hakaraia (Ngāti Kapu) and Tainui Stephens (Te Rarawa) made the short film, The Lawnmower Men of Kapu on their marae, Te Pou o Tainui. The cast members - Atawhai Raureti, Rawiri Paratene, and Sonny Arahanga - are also relatives.

It was the first time her whānau were exposed to the 'behind the scenes' grind which eventuated into seeing themselves on screens at film festivals.

"That started the kōrero, why can't we have a festival here in Aotearoa?" De Young said.

Looking back, Stephens, an award-winning film and television producer, director, and presenter, had "no idea" that the kaupapa would be as big as it is today.

Not only was it humbling for him to see the few hundred who attended the powhiri at Raukawa Marae, but the support surrounding the event.

"I don't think it's the film festival alone. I think the world is hungry for stories that speak truths that somehow aren't apparent in our story diet these days."

Filmmakers like Stephens would eventually make way for the up and coming and also nurture them along their career paths.

"The older generations will move on, and the younger generations will stand up.

"One of the pleasures of a kaupapa like Māoriland is that from the very beginning, we thought, ka whai wāhi rā tātou rangatahi i roto i ēnei mahinga katoa, our people, our young people have a point of view, they have something to offer."

A young Fijian filmmaker 'in disguise' was in the kitchen drying dishes when he was asked to talk to RNZ about his short film 30 Mars Street, which he wrote and directed under Māoriland Productions.

It's "essentially looking at the idea of home, what it means to people, especially indigenous Pacific people", Bai Buliruarua (Vanualevu, mai Vaturova, vasu i Beqa, mai Raviravi) said.

"It's about a young girl whose uncle has lived in front of the same house for 10 years. It looks at the impacts of the rapidly changing urban landscape that is a place like Auckland and the impact it has on communities that have settled and created communities."

Buliruarua has always loved story telling. Growing up, the medium was always changing - from being an artist to writing to filmmaking - but he was "interested enough" to go to university to study film.

"And working with Māoriland has definitely helped keep that passion growing just because you get to be in a space like this where it's creative, indigenous, you know, basically showing there is a space for Pacific indigenous stories."

Having his film shown at Māoriland, was special to him as it was the place where he got his first glimpse of indigenous filmmaking, and he was enthusiastic to carry on.

"I really want to go out the gate. I just do something like super weird, surreal, strange, odd, you know? I think Pacific people have so many layers and our communities are so multifaceted that there's just so many stories we could tell.

"So maybe the next one will be like a comedy, sci-fi set in Saturn or something, the more strange, weird, and kooky we can get, I think it'll just be more exciting."

30 Mars Street will be screened at 4.47pm on Friday, 28 March.

Three boys who painted themselves as a "fruit salad", due to the mix of Cook Island, Samoan, Māori, African-American heritage, are no strangers to the indigenous film setting.

However, Jesse (Coco-Shakim) Gibson has submitted his first animated film in to a film festival with the help of his mates TJ Buford and Noah Brown.

It's Me, Your Nana is about a young girl who uses an AI chatbot to communicate with her dead grandmother on the week of her funeral.

It will be shown for the first time at 11.29 on Thursday, 27 March.

Gibson said it's a hearty watch.

"It's sort of been something that's been mulling away at me for quite a long time. I didn't know that it would manifest as the short film. I always wanted to work on something around family, a family idea, especially with the topic of grieving."

And they made it within a month after learning about the festival's tight deadline.

"I have this idea that's been in my head for ages, but all the boys are keen to make something. I have one month, [we] got together, we produced this, and I made it in. So thankfully, we're here," Gibson said.

The production crew is a mix of spoken word poets, musicians, concept artists, game designers, writers, tea enthusiasts in their own rights - the perfect recipe for encouragement when it is needed.

"It's a bit of everything. Fruit salad, just like our culture. There's a lot of times on the project where I sort of felt faltering and props to the boys, props to the rest of the team to sort of come through and help awhi me, to get me to the finish line, get us to the finish line."

"[The team] are real supportive, especially when you look at the rest of the world. It's easy to feel like a small drop in a big ocean, but you know that big ocean is made of a million other drops that are probably looking at themselves the same way as you. We're all one wave, that's what I like to see it as."

Gibson wants everyone who is sitting on an idea to follow through with it.

"The hardest part of the journey is starting it, that first step. Once you go, you take that step, you realise everyone's stepping, everyone's walking, eventually everyone's running, and you go on to make some amazing things, but it all starts with that first step."