Andrew Okpeaha MacLean
2021Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
Hepi Mita
Merata Mita, Hepi Mita
A documentary portrait of the pioneering indigenous filmmaker and activist Merata Mita and an intimate tribute from a son about his mother that delves into the life of the first woman from an Indigenous Nation to solely direct a film anywhere in the world. Known as the grandmother of Indigenous cinema, Merata’s independent political documentaries of the 1970s and 80s highlighted injustices for Māori people and often divided the country. Mita was fearless in her life, her activism and her art. Chronicling the director’s journey to decolonize the film and television screens of New Zealand and the world, the film documents her work, her early struggles with her family and her drive for social justice that often proved personally dangerous.
Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
Sikumi (On the Ice)
Andrew Okpeaha MacLean
Brad Weyiouanna, Tony Bryant
An Inuit hunter drives his dog team out on the frozen Arctic Ocean in search of seals, but instead, bears witness to murder. In the microscopic communities of Arctic Alaska there is no anonymity -- the hunter knows both the victim and the murderer. The murderer, claiming self-defense and desperate to avoid punishment, tries to persuade his friend to forget what he has seen, and help dispose of the body. The hunter is forced to navigate the uneasy morality of honoring the body and memory of one friend and destroying the life of another.
Sikumi (On the Ice)
