Strength to Strength

The Māoriland Film Festival has been bringing the world to the Kāpiti Coast since 2014 as it celebrates indigenous voices and storytelling in film. Since its inception it has grown into the largest indigenous film festival in the world, with the 2023 event showcasing more than 200 short films from around the world. And in 2024, Māoriland is looking to make the Festival its biggest event yet!

“This year, 2023, was our first year back having the borders opened,” says Libby Hakaraia of the Māoriland Charitable Trust, who is herself a film producer and director, “and we had a great influx of visitors. For 2024 we are expecting even more film makers and film industry delegations from all around the world, which is a sign of the passion and success of the indigenous film community.”

The Māoriland Film Festival has been bringing the world to the Kāpiti Coast since 2014 as it celebrates indigenous voices and storytelling in film. Since its inception it has grown into the largest indigenous film festival in the world, with the 2023 event showcasing more than 200 short films from around the world. And in 2024, Māoriland is looking to make the Festival its biggest event yet!

“This year, 2023, was our first year back having the borders opened,” says Libby Hakaraia of the Māoriland Charitable Trust, who is herself a film producer and director, “and we had a great influx of visitors. For 2024 we are expecting even more film makers and film industry delegations from all around the world, which is a sign of the passion and success of the indigenous film community.”

Maddy de Young, who has taken on the role from Libby of Māoriland Film Festival Director, has been travelling the world in recent months and said Māoriland is globally very popular.

“I was lucky enough to be a part of the programming team at the ImagineNATIVE Film Festival in Toronto, Canada, and that festival had the largest number of submissions they’ve ever had. The standard is very high indeed, with many of these films picking up awards at festivals like Cannes and Berlin. Indigenous cinema is growing with a new generation of filmmakers coming through.

”The Māoriland hub regularly hosts gigs that bring some awesome talent to the Kāpiti Coast".

2024 will be a very big year, and the thing that sets Māoriland apart and the thing people celebrate us for is the experience you get in Ōtaki. It is a beautiful environment between the mountains and the sea, but mostly it is the manaaki you don’t get to experience anywhere else in the world, and we’re really looking forward to being about to share that experience with everyone again.”

Just as the Festival has gone from strength to strength, so too has the Māoriland Charitable Trust, the creative powerhouse behind the Festival. The Trust is committed to creating social, cultural and economic opportunities not just for film makers and artists, but for the wider community of Ōtaki, and the success of the Film Festival has seen its activities grow and branch out into new areas of creativity.

Libby is currently helming the film production arm of Māoriland, with a slate of projects including feature and short films, and the production arm also includes the training of young people who come from across New Zealand.

A further initiative, He Paki Taketake, is sharing and celebrating the Māori language by reversioning films into te reo Māori, while Toi Matarau is a contemporary Māori art gallery platform to showcase the incredible visual artists in the Ōtaki community and across Aotearoa.

Indigenous cinema is growing with a new generation of filmmakers coming through.

All these activities have been largely enabled through the establishment of the Māoriland Hub in the centre of Ōtaki town. It has now become a vibrant centre of creativity, fostering many forms of the arts as well as the nuts and bolts of the mahi behind those arts.

And the good news is that you don’t have to be a creative genius to get in on the action. The Māoriland hub regularly hosts gigs that bring some awesome talent to the Kāpiti Coast; titled Māoriland Presents, each event begins with a brief kōrero (rather than an interview) where artists are invited to share who they are, their why and how, before their performance begins, so - like so many things Māoriland - this is a welcome take on the traditional concept of performance. Māoriland Presents artists to date have included Anika Moa, Troy Kingi, Shayne Carter, Maisey Rika, Trinity Roots, The Modern Māori Quartet, Laughton Kora, and The Māori Sidesteps to name just a few.

Which is just another reason to keep maoriland.co.nz bookmarked in your browser. The Film Festival schedule will be announced on Waitangi Day, but there is always something going on in this creative hive of industry that is worth checking out and that makes for another very good reason to get on over to Ōtaki!