Attendees pose for a photo to launch Māoriland 2024. Photo: RNZ / Pokere Paewai
The largest Indigenous film festival in the world is back on in Ōtaki for 2024, with the Māoriland Film Festival showing 168 feature films, documentaries and short films
The films come from nations as far apart as Finland, Kenya, Australia and Taiwan, and indigenous people from all around the world have been welcomed on to Raukawa marae in Ōtaki for the 11th year of the festival.
Festival director Madeleine Hakaraia de Young said the quality of this year's films made it hard to pick a favourite.
"This year was really hard to programme, because we had the most submissions that we've ever had. We could only physically put 168 titles into the festival and so I don't have favourites per se as much as there's little films that are special to me."
Local films like The Mountain and Uproar are on the schedule alongside features from all over the world - including Australian horror The Moogai, Navajo feature film Frybread Face and Me and the Inuit documentary Twice Colonised.
Māoriland Film Festival director Madeleine Hakaraia de Young. Photo: RNZ / Pokere Paewai
de Young has taken over the role of director from her aunt Libby Hakaraia, but she said her whānau had been nurturing her to step into the role.
"It's strange to step out in front, but at the same time you can see a bit of a generational shift happening with the festival, as all of the rangatahi (youth) who've grown up with Māoriland are coming into their own."
The hongi after the powhiri launching the Māoriland Film Festival. Photo: RNZ / Pokere Paewai
Film was a way for Indigenous people to tell their stories without limitations, she said.
"With our filmakers they're able to tell the stories of their people, of their languages, of their struggles, of their whenua and also what makes them laugh, what makes them joyful and we're seeing that audiences connect.
"People want to hear new stories, people want to see worlds they haven't experienced before."
Tainui Stephens - a board member of the Māoriland Charitable Trust - said this years theme was 'Kia Tau Te Rongomau': a call for peace.
"The theme for this year's festival is peace, for fairly obvious reasons. I think in this era we're all undergoing or suffering a bit of truth decay, so the story is where it's at and we're here to celebrate the story. Indigenous stories that offer the antidote to the world's ills."
Tainui Stephens speaks at the powhiri launching the Māoriland Film Festival. Photo: RNZ / Pokere Paewai
The festival is not just limited to the screen, with an exhibition in response to the theme of Kia Tau Te Rongomau down Ōtaki's main street, curated by Rachel Rakena and featuring artists Tāme Iti, Regan Balzer, Johnson Witehira and Ngataiharuru Taepa.
Stephens said it had been fabulous to see the growth of the indigenous voice over the past 11 years of the festival.
"We've got 168 films showing, representing about 140 indigenous nations. Short films, long films and stories that people to normally get to see, you certainly don't see them on TV, you don't see them in movie houses all the time."
The Māoriland Film Festival runs from now through to Sunday 24 March, ending with a red carpet party on Sunday evening.