Maddy Hakaraia de Young(@madicattt) instagram tagged download

With our Aho Shorts Production Funding teams now gearing up to head into production over the next few months, we’re looking back at some of the mahi, kōrero and connections that have helped get these films ready for the next stage.

At our first Aho Shorts wānanga, our teams got to hear their scripts come to life, with some incredible actors joining them around the table, including Rīhari Te Are, Alex King, Nicola Kawana and Jordi Webber.

Over the next month, we’ll be sharing more from our first wānanga, including a closer look at the creative teams behind the five Aho Shorts projects.

Let the next chapter begin!

The Māoriland Indigenous Co-Lab supports filmmakers to significantly advance their feature film project over three pou.

Pou Tuatahi - the writers lab is an 8 week residency during which writers work with mentors and tuakana to develop their next draft. It’s intense mahi which closes with table reads.

In the days leading up to Matariki we gathered at the Māoriland Hub to hear what they’d created - six truly original stories that run the gamut from sisterly comedy to Indigenous superhero epic.

We’re so proud of the writers -
Matasila Freshwater with Roundabout
Aviaq Johnston with Inuks on Vacation
Ella Gilbert with The Desert Road
Allan George with Ancestral Fusion
Natasha Wanganeen with Battle of the Ancestors
Leigh Minarapa with The Keepers of the Night

And big love and appreciation to all the actors and supporters who came out this week to be part of it.

104

Ok just gonna nerd out for abit. We’ve written a song for the first time and these are my hot tips.
1. Have no money to licence one
2. Have a very real deadline
3. Have good snacks
And 4. Have No Shame! 😂

So here is what we did and yeah it was super fun.
Bring on the next phase.

#songwritingexperience #moviemakingtime #maoriart #nzfilm #thesongbirds

$Here it is in my hand again. This hei toki pounamu, a taonga from Aotearoa, has returned to me restored through the hands of Ruben Trujillo, @ignea.stone To restore what was missing, Ruben went to the Magdalena River, found a green limestone, ground it into powder and carefully filled its fractures. So this pounamu from Aotearoa now carries within its scars a little of the Magdalena. Two territories. Two waters. One stone. This hei toki was given to me by Joe Te Rito (Ngāti Kahungunu) in December 2011, during my first journey to Aotearoa. @kathrynlehmannz opened that path, bringing us together at the University of Auckland for an encounter on Indigenous media, participatory democracy and language revitalization. I arrived carrying the communication and documentary experience of the Wayuu people: our work to protect wayuunaiki, territory and water through education, communication, cinema and political action. We found many resonances between Wayuu and Māori experiences. That encounter became part of a relationship that has continued for fifteen years through art and cinema, Indigenous media, language, memory, territory and ancestral knowledge. The Wayuu elder Ramón Paz Iipuana taught us that tradition is like a wise elder sitting on the road of days, telling future generations what she has lived. Perhaps this stone has been sitting on that road with us. Pounamu carries mana, memory and wairua. This one has traveled from Aotearoa to Wayuu territory. It broke. It met the waters of the Magdalena. It was cared for. And now it keeps walking. Perhaps relationships between peoples are like this too: they travel, acquire marks, are cared for, and continue gathering memory. From Māori to Wayuu, from Aotearoa to La Guajira: a stone that walks. Kia ora, Joe, for the stone. Thank you, Kathryn, for opening that first path. Anayawatse, Ruben, for giving it new life. Fifteen years later, the journey continues.$

128

112

166

300

163