The newly reopened Gaiety Cinema in Wairoa hosted the Maori Film Awards Gala of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival recently.
The following awards were presented and we would like to congratulate WIFT members Catherine Fitzgerald for producing award winning Confessions of Prisoner T, as well as Lara Northcroft for producing award winning Tits on a Bull.
| AOTEAROA SHORT FILM - BEST ACTOR (AUDIENCE AWARD) TIMOTI TIAKIWAI - IN OW WHAT? BY MIKE JONATHON AOTEAROA SHORT FILM - BEST ACTRESS (AUDIENCE AWARD) T-TAHITI PRIZE (RETURN BUSINESS CLASS FLIGHT TO TAHITI ON AIR TAHITI) AOTEAROA SHORT FILM - BEST SHORT FILM (AUDIENCE AWARD) WOMEN IN FILM & TELEVISION WIFT MANA WAHINE AWARD INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS PRIZE MANA WAIROA AWARD FOR OVERALL BEST ENTRY & ADVANCEMENT OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS TO: Keynote speaker was veteran film maker Gaylene Preston who also presented the WIFT Mana Wahine Award. Chelsea Winstanley was unable to attend, as she is six months hapu, but was able to send a Skype video for everyone at the festival. Michael Bennett was present to accept the Mana Wairoa Award. He also invited lead investigator in the Teina Pora Case Tim McKinnell to the stage, where he received a standing ovation. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Wairoa Maori Film Festival and the 40th anniversary of the Maori Artists & Writers Hui in Wairoa in 1975, Saturday afternoon was given over to a roundtable discussion about the past, present and future of Maori film. Speakers on the roundtable included academics Dr Davinia Thornley (Univ. of Otago), Deborah Walker Morrison (Univ. of Auckland) and Dr Ella Henry (AUT). Ella Henry spoke of the founders of the Maori cinema movement, and their dream of Maori telling their own stories in their own way on screen. Film makers part of the "Maori New Wave" spoke of their self-funded projects in gestation: Hiona Henare on Native in Nuhaka, Lennie Hill on Umbrella Man, Mark Ruka on Barcrawl, Nikki Si'ulepa on her Latin America travel diary, and Kim Hegan on 54 Ghandi Road. On Sunday, films also screened at the Gaiety Cinema in Wairoa. The closing night, a "Bush Cinema" at Morere Hot Springs, ended a grand celebration of 10 years of the Maori Film Festival in Wairoa. |