Calling all filmmakers: chance to sell your work internationally at the Rotorua Indigenous Film Festival

The core members of Steambox. Photo / Supplied

Budding filmmakers will have the chance to sell their content to international industry executives is available at this month's Rotorua Indigenous Film Festival.

The festival was created by a group of award-winning Rotorua film makers: Piripi Curtis, Mike Jonathan and Lara Northcroft of the Steambox Film Collective.

Now into its second year, the Rotorua Film Festival will offer indigenous film and television makers the opportunity to sell their content to top-level industry executives.

These include Linda O'Shaughnessy from Canadian Indigenous TV and Anusha Lee from Indigenous TV Australia.

This means Rotorua filmmakers could have their content aired internationally.

Festival director Piripi Curtis said this was modelled opportunity on the renowned MIPCOM, an annual event held in Cannes, which provided a premium networking hub for film makers and producers to buy and sell content from around the globe.

Curtis met O'Shaughnessy when he attended MIPCOM a number of years ago and sold his own television content to her.

Curtis said O'Shaughnessy and Lee would be looking for filmed and ready-to-sell content from both experienced and emerging producers, unique stories that inspire and lead to a greater understanding of indigenous people and culture.

"The best outcome we can hope for is that our producers get to sign a deal to sell their shows into Australia and Canada," Curtis said.

He said it would grow connections "to our indigenous brothers and sisters abroad".

Appointments will also be available for producers and film makers to meet with New Zealand Film Commission, TVNZ, Prime TV, Māori Television, Te Māngai Pāho, Radio New Zealand as well as New Zealand on Air.

The film festival is part of the Aronui Arts Festival in Rotorua which kicked off this month.

It will showcase a diverse range of the arts including theatre, te reo Māori, music, writing, visual and traditional art as well as film.

The festival runs for three days and begins on September 26.

It will bring some of the best indigenous films from around the world.

These 15-minute appointments will only be open to registered members of RIFF. Registration to be a member can be found on RIFF's website.

The festival programme is available to view here.