The Māor­i­land Film Fest­iv­al 2017 pro­gramme includes multi-award win­ning fea­tures, doc­u­ment­ar­ies and short films. Of the award win­ning fea­ture films, there are eight New Zea­l­and premi­eres. “Indi­gen­ous film­makers are very keen to screen at Māor­i­land as they con­sider it to be the most import­ant fest­iv­al in the South­ern hemi­sphere,” said Māor­i­land Char­it­able Trust chair Tainui Steph­ens.

This year there are some spe­cial events as well.

  • Māor­i­land Ranga­tahi Film Fest­iv­al – cur­ated by Ngā Pakiaka – a group of award-win­ning young film­makers (aged 12 – 16). They have viewed films from around the world to put togeth­er a pro­gramme for their peers
  • Vir­tu­al Real­ity – INDIGI LAB will be at Māor­i­land to present their work in the Vir­tu­al Real­ity space along­side Lan­ita Ririnui-Ryan, cre­at­or of Poi 360 – a digit­al hub for the world of poi.
  • Hawaii­an Street Artist Estria Miy­ashiro – In 2010, Estria co-foun­ded ‘The Estria Found­a­tion’, an organ­isa­tion that cre­ates art in pub­lic spaces loc­ally and glob­ally with artists, youth, edu­cat­ors and act­iv­ists. Their aim is to raise aware­ness and inspire action to resolve human and envir­on­ment­al issues.
  • The NATIVE Slam II – an inter­na­tion­al col­lab­or­a­tion where estab­lished inter­na­tion­al Indi­gen­ous film­makers from Canada, Hawaii, Aus­tralia, Tahiti and Aotearoa are brought togeth­er and chal­lenged to pro­duce 5 short films in 72 hours.
  • The Māor­i­land Storytelling Tent – a relaxed for­um for film­makers and film fans to talk about the work and the ideas seen on screen.