Presented with support of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, the exhibition is an expression of Rakaipaakatanga and the Kahungunu Community Marae as a centre of artistic life in Aotearoa.
The festival puts focus on food sovereignty this year, as Kahungunu Marae screens “Gather”, which celebrates the fruits of the indigenous food sovereignty movement at 7pm tonight.
The film profiles innovative changemakers in Native American tribes across North America who are reclaiming their identities after centuries of physical and cultural genocide.
On an Apache reservation, a chef embarks on a ambitious project to reclaim his tribe’s ancient ingredients; in South Dakota, a gifted Lakota high school student, raised on a buffalo ranch, is using science to prove her tribe’s native wisdom about environmental sustainability; and in northern California, a group of young men from the Yurok tribe struggle to rehabilitate its rivers to protect the salmon.
“Gather” beautifully shows how reclaiming and recovering ancient foodways provides a form of resistance and survival, collectively bringing back health and self-determination to their people. The screening is sponsored by the US Embassy of New Zealand.
The food theme is explored further as Toi Nāhaka will be open all weekend with an art exhibition and a food sovereignty wananga — Mana O Te Kai — from 10am to 4pm on Friday, with a special screening of “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva” at Kahungunu Marae.
Papatuanuku Marae’s Hineamaru Ropati, Koanga Gardens’ Kay Baxter and Chris Huriwai from the documentary “Milked” will be present to talk about food sovereignty matters.
At 10am on Friday, Kahungunu Marae will screen the classic “The Neglected Miracle”, which The New Zealand Herald’s Peter Calder described as a “chillingly prescient study of the erosion of plant genetic diversity in the third world by seed companies for first-world profit”.
In “The Neglected Miracle”, director Barry Barclay and producer John O’Shea investigate the dangers of corporate “ownership” of genetic crop resources in Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand. Their film features interviews with peasant farmers from Latin America who preserved and nurtured their corn and potatoes since time immemorial, and whose closeness to the land is photographed beautifully.
The scientists and businessmen who appear in the film, most of them Dutch, are more forthright than their 21st century successors as they defend their rights to treat those resources as intellectual property.
The “Milked” documentary will also screen on Friday at 2pm.
“Milked” exposes New Zealand’s multibillion-dollar dairy industry as a young activist goes deep into the dairy sector exposing not only the sustainability crisis and the denial of impending agricultural disruption, but also what New Zealand and other countries can do to change their fate. It is executive-produced by Keegan Kuhn (Cowspiracy, What the Health) and Suzy Amis Cameron (The Game Changers).
The Wairoa Māori Film Festival high tea celebration takes place on Sunday at 2pm at Kahungunu Marae. It is a Mana Wahine event presented in association with Women in Film & Television NZ (WIFT NZ). It will be surrounded by art curated for the Toi Nuhaka arts event, an afternoon of entertainment, glamour and excitement.
The event will include a digital marae audio-visual presentation, creating an immersive environment of sound and light, presentation of the 12th annual Women in Film & Television Mana Wahine Awards and the Wairoa Māori Film Festival Short Film Awards & Mana Wairoa Prize, special surprise performances and awards throughout the afternoon, and an afternoon tea lunch with Matariki-themed foods.
One of the highlights of the festival will be the screening of “Chicueyicuicatl” at 10am on Saturday at Kahungunu Marae.
This is the first feature-length musical film in any language native to the Americas, exclusively in the Nahuatl language and performed with indigenous instruments of Mexico.
It is set on an island in Lake Chapala, a historical and archaeological site with a history stretching back more than 3000 years, and considered a sacred site by the Nahuatl people. The script comprises eight songs (cuicatl) that create a theme around human existence. The beginning is a metaphor for childbirth, as the soloist singer seems to emerge from a veil, a luminous placenta preceded by the singing of birds at sunrise.
The festival includes a Schools Film Festival, and special encore screenings of films from the Wairoa Schools Film Festival of 2021 will show at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm on Monday at the Gaiety Theatre. Koha entry.
Founded in 2005, the Wairoa Māori Film Festival is the longest running Māori and indigenous film festival in New Zealand. The festival occurs every Queen’s Birthday weekend on the East Coast, in local marae and at the Gaiety Theatre. The festival is part of the living history of Māori and New Zealand cinema.
For more information and to see the schedule, head to https://maorimovies.com/
