To return to the main page please click HERE

Māoriland Film Festival is Aotearoa’s international Indigenous Film Festival. Each March, Māoriland brings Indigenous films and their creators to Ōtaki for five days of screenings, workshops, seminars and more! 

Kiriata (Dramatic Feature Films) at MFF2019

Opening Night Premiere - VAI
Wednesday 20 March, Red Carpet opens at 8 pm, Screening commences 8:30 pm, Ngā Purapura

From the producers of Waru, Vai is a portmanteau feature film made by 9 female Pacific filmmakers, filmed in 7 different Pacific countries: Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Kuki Airani (Cook Islands), Samoa, Niue and Aotearoa (New Zealand). It is about the journey of empowerment through culture over the lifetime of one woman, Vai, played by a different Indigenous actress in each of the Pacific countries. In each of these Pacific nations ‘vai’ means water.

Preceded by short film - Praise Song for Oceania

Praise Song for Oceania is a karakia to the ecologies, histories, politics, economies and cultures of the Ocean. 

SGaawaay K'uuna (Edge of The Knife)
Saturday 23 March, 7 pm, Ngā Purapura
Sunday 24 March, 4:30 pm, The Civic Theatre

Sgaawaay K’uuna makes history as the first feature film in the Haida language. Set in 19th-century Haida Gwaii, it tells the classic Haida story of the traumatized and stranded man transformed to Gaagiixiid, the wildman.

Mystery Preview
Friday 22 March, 6:30 pm, Ngā Purapura 

A limited number of tickets available!

Aliko & Ambai
Sunday 24 March, 10 am, The Civic Theatre

Aliko & Ambai is a feature film about two young women facing the challenges of growing up in the beautiful Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Angelique's Isle
Thursday 21 March , 7:30 pm, The Civic Theatre
Sunday 24 March, 2:30 pm, The Civic Theatre

Angelique's Isle is a story about love and survival. Abandoned on a deserted island with her voyager husband, Charlie, Angelique, an Anishinaabe woman, finds her faith tested as she fights starvation, the elements, and the treacherous Lake Superior.

Anori
Saturday 23 March, 7:30 pm, The Civic Theatre

Steeped in Greenlandic myths, Anori is a tragic love story inspired by the old Greenlandic myths.

Akornatsinniittut - Tarratta Nunaanni (Among Us - In The Land Of Our Shadows)
Friday 22 March, 9:30 pm, The Civic Theatre

23-year-old self taught director, Marc Fussing Rosbach presents his first feature film - a suspense filled sci-fi adventure drawing on Greenlandic culture, myth, folklore and legends.

Tia and Piujuq
Sunday 24 March, 12:30 pm, The Civic Theatre

Summer moves slowly for Tia, a 10-year-old Syrian girl who has recently moved to Montreal with her parents, as she struggles to make new friends. When she finds a magic portal that transports her to the arctic tundra, she befriends Piujuq, an Inuk girl of her age, and they immerse themselves in a world of Inuit myth and magic.

Toyon Kyyl
Friday 22 March, 9 pm, Ngā Purapura

Set in Yakutia in 1930 - a time in rural Siberia when the Soviet presence is just starting to cast its shadow - this exquisite film follows the story of an elderly couple, Mikipper and Oppuos.

From the Indigenous Sakha Republic, Toyon Kyyl recently won the top film prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. 

Trouble in the Garden
Friday 22 March, 3:30 pm, Ngā Purapura

Bailed out and taken in by a brother she hasn't seen in years, an Indigenous protester and her adoptive family reckon with betrayal - of love, land, and blood.

Put March 20 - 24 in your calendars now and join us in Ōtaki to celebrate the world of Indigenous cinema and creativity! 

See the full Māoriland Film Festival programme online at www.maorilandfilm.co.nz