“… the Maori filmmaker carries the burden of having to correct the past and will therefore be concerned with demystifying and decolonizing the screen” – Merata Mita, "The Soul and The Image" “How do indigenous people use the camera once they come to have some control over it? Perhaps it is on our own shoulders to rework the well-established rules … so that the way of creating images slowly becomes more comfortable for our cultures” - Barry Barclay, Our Own Image The course looks primarily at how Māori filmmakers have used the medium of cinema as a means to reassert cultural identity and autonomy or tino rangatiratanga, ie. to “decolonize the screen”. We trace the theory and practice of indigenous 4th cinema in Aotearoa, from the activist documentaries (eg. Bastion Point: Day 507, 1980; Patu, 1983) and first features (Ngāti, 1987; Mauri, 1988; Te Rua, 1991) of pioneering practitioner-theorists, Merata Mita and Barry Barclay, during the Māori Cultural Renaissance in the 1970s and 80s, to the present. In addition to the above, key films will include the following: Lee Tamahori’s controversial adaptation of Alan Duff’s incendiary Once Were Warriors (1994) the post-millennium wave of contemporary dramas (Matariki, 2010; The Pā Boys, 2014; Mahana, 2016; Waru, 2017; Cousins 2021); the playful, eclectic, internationally acclaimed dramatic comedies of Taika Waititi (eg. Boy, 2010). Documentaries like Poi E, 2016 and Merata: How Mum Decolonized the Screen, 2018) and fiction features directed by non-Māori (eg. The Whale Rider, White Lies, The Strength of Water) will also help answer the central question: What is Māori Cinema? What is its relationship to cultural identity formation and indigenous sovereignty? (How) can / does it “decolonize the screen”? Or not… As well as providing a socio-historical overview, each of the lectures will introduce and discuss the key cultural, political, ethical, theoretical and aesthetic issues, such as post-colonial theory; kaupapa Māori film theory and 4th cinema; representing otherness; intersections of Māori Cinema and European Art Cinema; theories of gender & sexuality; realism vs “myth” and fantasy; Māori film and/as oral “History”; literary adaptation; language revitalisation; the subversive power of laughter. The course also introduces and develops knowledge of the basic tools of film analysis, for example, shot scale and angles, mise en scène, editing techniques, and the role of film music. Weekly seminars provide students with opportunities to work together in order to refine and extend knowledge via group discussion. Regular and varied assessments encourage and reward active engagement with course content (films, lectures, seminars and readings), with teaching staff and each other, to develop a broad range of transferable skills: written and oral competency; working individually and collaboratively, in small groups; fostering tuakana-teina relationships; providing and receiving constructive feedback; meeting deadlines, as well as research and analysis. All students will have opportunities to peer review Stage 3 oral presentations.
At Stage 2 level, by the end of the course, students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of individual films (on aesthetic, socio-cultural & political levels) and to articulate their place and relevance to the central kaupapa of “decolonizing the screen”. Students will begin to integrate theoretical issues and bibliographic references into their work.