Wellywood Woman

  I always enjoy this image that accompanied Variety 's announcement of NZ's new International Co-Development Fund, because, thanks to Bluestocking Series, I produced the Complex Female Protagonist cap that Jane Campion wears here!   Some good news this week. A relief to write about, after my recent dense essays that explore continued  risks to the safety of New Zealand women who make films; our taxpayer over-investment in international projects that white men write and direct; and under-investment in the distribution and marketing of films that New Zealand women write and direct; and new and  inequitable  taxpayer-funded creative worker research that may be used by policy-makers.  Whew. Individually, these good news announcements don't mean much. But collectively, they may signal that – at last – that women writers and directors are not 'exceptional' in taxpayer-funded projects here. And some of them have established a new, local, ‘normal’ w...

Three mothers-and-film things to celebrate! What a pleasure! 1. The Mothers Day screenings of Hepi Mita's beautiful, powerful film about his mother: Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen , which I believe is central to debates about women's filmmaking, about women artists of all kinds who are also mothers (and their families); and about activist art-making. These screenings mark the beginning of Merata 's New Zealand theatrical release. At some venues the Mothers Day screenings will be accompanied by morning tea and Q & As with special guests associated with the film –  Merata's children and others: in Auckland (with Hepi Mita and Chelsea Winstanley); Christchurch (with Tearepa Kahi); Gisborne (with a haka powhiri and Merata's daughter Awatea Mita); Tauranga (with Merata's son Rafer Rautjoki); Rotorua (with Merata's son Richard Rautjoki and Cliff Curtis). And  Wellington  has an afternoon tea with Hepi, who will have had to leap on a plane v...