October 08, 2015
Rasta films for Wairoa festival
Start growing your dreadlocks.
The Wairoa Maori Film Festival has secured a unique collection of Rastafarian films out of Jamaica for next year's festival which runs from June 3 to 6 at Kahungunu Marae in Nuhaka.
Director Leo Koziol says the theme is Native Vibration, and the organisers hope to connect with the global Black experience out of communities like Harlem in New York and Trenchtown in Jamaica.
There will be a night of Maori reggae music fusion to celebrate this theme.
Guests and participants of the festival will be invited to join a discussion on what is native in an age of multiculturalism and placelessness, including the spiritual aspects of indigineity, how skin colour and appearance affects how people are defined as native, and how personal relationships across color, gender, tribe and culture affect people.
Mr Koziol says filmmakers are asking whether indigenous culture is merely another commodity to be traded on the open market film and cinema.
The New Zealand Film Commission has been confirmed as the festival's primary sponsor, and some films will go on to other film festivals across New Zealand and internationally.
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