As the first Māori woman to write and direct a feature film, Merata Mita focused on telling New Zealand’s indigenous peoples’ stories on the screen. But as her son Hepi Mita notes in the trailer for his documentary, “Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen,” Merata’s own untold story might be the best of them all.
The filmmaker challenged society and cinema’s status quo in her work. “What we see on the screen is only the dominant, white, monocultural perspective on life,” she says in an interview. “We need to see our own. We need to see each other up there.”
Merata’s films chronicled protests, police brutality, and inequality — and prompted people to ask why she didn’t make “nice” films. “I couldn’t make nice films, because they were doing ugly things,” Merata explains in the spot. And she wasn’t just spotlighting New Zealand’s broken system: “We’re not exclusive,” she declares. “The problems that we have here are problems that occur in every other single country in the world.”
Merata’s directing credits include “Hotere,” “Mauri,” and “Patu!” Features “Spooked” and “Utu” and TV movie “One of those Blighters” are among her acting credits. She died in 2010 at the age of 67.
Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY acquired “Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen” earlier this year, following its screening at Sundance.
The doc will screen in select cities beginning today, May 3, in London and concluding June 29 in Atlanta. You can find screening information here. It will be available to stream on Netflix May 12.
