Merata Mita
Merata Mita is a key figure in the story of Māori filmmaking. Through documentaries, interviews and her dramatic feature Mauri, she was a passionate voice for Māori, a provocateur, an advocate for change, and an inspiration to a growing global tribe of indigenous filmmakers.
Merata Mita grew up in the Bay of Plenty town of Maketu, "the eldest daughter and third child of nine children". She had a traditional rural Māori upbringing, and was expected to miss school come planting time. "I always had this quiet fulfilling feeling about being part of Ngāti Pikiao." Sometimes she watched newsreels as they were projected onto the walls of the local wharenui.
Unsure what to do for a career, she began eight years teaching, at age 19. Her high school students at Kawerau College were mostly Māori or Pacific Islanders, and "mostly condemned to failure". Mita tried to foster an atmosphere of aroha, rather than authoritarianism. The students were good at "expressing themselves through art, image, drawing"; Mita realised "how powerful image was in reaching people who don't have other communication skills".
Mita worked on her first documentary in 1977, helping a Japanese film crew organise interviews with Māori. The same year she made an unforgettable screen debut, revealing details of life as a Māori solo mother in TV series Women. She was already growing disenchanted about Māori misrepresentation on film — and the way Māori crew seemed to be employed "merely to make access to the maraes easier". Activist organisation Ngā Tamatoa provided inspiration, excitement, and a sense of belonging. It "was intertribal, urban, political. It also gave Māori women a place to speak, a place we didn't have on the marae".
In May 1978 Mita and her then partner, German-born filmmaker Gerd Pohlmann, took an urgent phone call: "get a film crew up to Bastion Point". Mita, Pohlmann and Leon Narbey captured images of the police removing 200+ protestors from the site. The trio made Bastion Point Day 507 communally, and there were disagreements during the extended edit (at one point, Mita even "picked up all the film and ran off with it").
But the result was worth it. The film became "a catalyst for many discussions, with screenings at schools, universities, and "on hundreds of marae". Mita was "shocked the way people broke down and wept, particularly Māori men." Mita discusses Bastion Point in this Kete Aronui interview. Elsewhere she expressed surprise that it played on Kiwi television. "It has a partisan viewpoint, is short on commentary and emphasises the overkill aspect of the combined police/military operation. It is a style of documentary that I have never deviated from because it best expresses a Māori approach to filmmaking."
This late 70s/early 80s period was a hive of activity — four films were completed in a two year period (plus television work for Koha). Mita was learning from, and working communally with Pākehā, while developing her own voice as a Māori filmmaker. Mita and Pohlmann co-directed films about the trade union movement (The Hammer and the Anvil), and spent roughly two years chronicling the Mangere Bridge industrial dispute, for The Bridge. Mita also collaborated with actor Martyn Sanderson on Keskidee Aroha, which captured encounters between Māori and a touring black theatre group from London. Mita had directed her first solo film in 1979 — hour-long doco Karanga Hokianga ki o Tamariki — after being invited to "bring a Māori point of view" to a festival run by a Catholic Māori community in the Hokianga.
In 1980 Mita began researching, reporting and presenting for wide-ranging Māori show Koha. Although the show provided valuable training, Mita has described this period (in book Film in Aotearoa New Zealand ) as "often bitter and demoralising". "We were naive enough to think that these were programmes by Māori, about Māori, for Māori..." But a TVNZ executive passed on some hard truths: Koha was to be aimed at a majority — i.e. white — audience. Te reo content had to be "less than two per cent".
Patu! was Merata Mita's record of eye-opening clashes between protestors and police during the 1981 Springbok tour. It marked New Zealand's first feature-length documentary directed by a woman. The experience left Mita dispirited about both racism and funding agencies. Police "came round perhaps a dozen times", after winning court orders to seize footage that might help them prosecute protestors. Reels were hidden, and developed in Australia. Mita and her children have talked of being followed and harrassed.
The subject of intense media coverage, Patu! was described by filmmaker Peter Wells as "the hottest documentary ever made in New Zealand". At the point documentaries rarely won theatrical screenings outside of film festivals, and Patu! got only limited cinema screenings in New Zealand. It was also shot on 16mm, a format rarely used in cinemas. Overseas, Patu! played at many festivals; in 2012 it became one of the first documentaries listed in the New Zealand section of UNESCO's Memory of the World project.
Mita argued that Patu! saw her branded unfairly as a political filmmaker, when actually the film was primarily visual, and deliberately low on commentary or analysis. Next came Mauri (1988). Only the second dramatic feature to have a Māori woman director, it was the first to be directed by a Māori woman solo (1972's To Love a Māori is believed to have been co-directed by Ramai Hayward and husband Rudall). Mauri centres on issues of birthright and racism in a rural community. Land rights activist Eva Rickard and Utu's Anzac Wallace feature. The heart of the story, argued Mita, was the characters' relationship with the land.
This behind-the-scenes visit by Koha gives few hints of a sometimes tense shoot. In a memorable Auckland Star interview, Mita argued that Pākehā crew members had tried to remove "all the marae scenes", and had complained about less experienced Māori crew (see quotes here). Filming was "littered with people who were obstructive, racist, arrogant and of little or no use to the production. In fact, when we booted the whole lot out things went a lot better. We saved so much money."
Mauri won a prize at Italy's Rimini Film Festival. When the film recevied some negative reviews after screenings back home, Mita spoke of Pākehā critics who were "not qualified to assess it". She asked not that people like the film, but that they open themselves to stories being told in other ways. She had consciously rejected Pākehā traditions of storytelling in favour of a layered approach, in keeping with the strongly oral traditions of Māori — "That's what oral traditional is all about, as you pull back each layer and as you go in further, you get an incredible amount of depth." Such differences, she felt, "Pākehā critics don't even take into account when they're analyzing the film".
In 1989 Mita and her longtime editor Annie Collins were at an editing bench on Turangawaewae Marae. Mita had accepted a challenge from Film Archive founder Jonathan Dennis: to make Mana Waka, a documentary that used abandoned footage capturing the creation of four special waka, which Princess Te Puea had commissioned for New Zealand's centenary back in 1940. At one point descendants of the original Pākehā cameraman ran off with an early print of the film, despite having agreed to let Mita direct.
Mita also made this 2001 documentary on artist Ralph Hotere, and others on Rastafarians in Ruatoria (Dread) judicial injustice (The Shooting of Dominick Kaiwhata) and Maori music (Te Pahū). Her video for Che Fu hit 'Waka' shared the honours for Music Video of the Year at the 1999 Hawaii Music Awards.
From the early 1990s, Mita lived increasingly in the United States, with her partner Geoff Murphy. Earlier she had acted in Murphy's 1983 'Maori Western' Utu, (having fought successfully for her role to be more than a sex object). Mita and Murphy collaborated on multiple projects, including this music video for Herbs. Mita was a producer on Murphy's movie Spooked (2004) and a second unit director on an American TV remake of The Magnificent Seven.
Mita set up and led the indigenous filmmaking programme at the University of Hawai'i Mānoa. She hosted workshops and spoke about indigenous filmmaking in many countries, and in 2005 was a key player in the launch of the Hawai'inuiakea Native Film Showcase. Heather Rae, who ran the Sundance Institute's Native Programme, has paid tribute to Mita as a key player in encouraging Native American people to connect and be "part of a global presence of indigenous people". Mita mentored many emerging indigenous directors, and spoke of wanting to "decolonise the screen", and capture viewers with stories that hadn't been seen before.
She executive produced The Land has Eyes (2004), the first feature directed by a native Fijian (Vilsoni Hereniko), and encouraged Taika Waititi to play to his strengths and add more humour to his feature breakthrough Boy (2010).
In 1996 Mita was awarded the Leo Dratfield Lifetime Achievement Award for documentary, by the Robert Flaherty Foundation. Two years later she was the subject of Hinewehi Mohi's documentary Merata Mita - Making Waves, part of TV series Rangatira. In 2009 Te Waka Toi gave her a Te Tohu Toi Ke/Making a Difference Award; soon after she was named a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit for her services to film.
Alongside Tainui Stephens and fellow Māori film pioneer Barry Barclay, Mita helped brainstorm the idea of an initiative to encourage Māori film and filmmakers. Te Paepae Ataata trust was born in 2010. Sadly only one feature would emerge.
Mita collapsed suddenly outside an Auckland television studio on 31 May 2010. Her long cherished dream of adapting Patricia Grace novel Cousins into a feature film remained unfulfilled.
Mita's documentary Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata was weeks from debuting on Māori Television, as part of a Matariki special. It examined how Māori could find ways to prevent violence against children, and Mita had described it as one of her most important projects. Saving Grace finally aired in March 2011.
In July 2018, Mita's son Heperi Mita completed Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen. The film archivist used footage of his mother, her films, and interviews with siblings to direct the feature-length documentary. It debuted at the 2018 NZ International Film Festival and later sold to Netflix.
In May 2024 NZ On Screen launched this Merata Mita Collection, including tributes by Ainsley Gardiner (one of many inspired by her), Tainui Stephens and her son Heperi. In book Head and Shoulders (1986) Mita has a 30 page interview, and she wrote a personal history of local cinema for Film in Aotearoa New Zealand (1992). She also features in Girls' Own Stories: Australian and New Zealand Women's Films (1997), Interpreting the Past: New Zealand Cinema (2001) and New Zealand Filmmakers (2007).
Moe mai e te rangatira, moe mai.
Profile updated on 30 May 2024
Sources include
Merata Mita, 'A Film Maker's Manifesto' - Alternative Cinema, Spring/Summer 1984/85, page 19
Merata Mita, 'The Soul and the Image' in Film in Aotearoa New Zealand. Editors Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa (Wellington: Victoria University Press, Second Edition, 1996)
Chloe Cull, 'Considering Merata Mita's Legacy' The Occasional Journal. Loaded November 2015. Accessed 30 May 2024
Ella Henry, 'Mana Waka' (Interview) - Onfilm, February/March 1990 (volume 7, number 2)
Roger Horrocks, ‘New Zealand Film Makers at the Auckland City Art Gallery: Merata Mita' (Catalogue) 1984
Helen Martin, 'Through a Maori Lens' (Interview) - The Listener, 14 October 1989
Helen Martin and Sam Edwards, New Zealand Film 1912 - 1996 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1997)
Tapu Misa, 'Stories Worth Telling' (Interview) - Mana, December 2002/January 2003
Virginia Myers, Head and Shoulders (Auckland: Penguin Books, 1996)
Cushla Parekowhai, 'Kōrero Ki Taku Tuakana: Merata Mita and me.' Illusions 9, December 1988, page 21
Tony Reid, 'Recurring nightmare for tour film-maker' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 27 August 1983
Deborah Shepard, Reframing Women - A History of New Zealand Film (Auckland: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000)
Phil Twyford, 'Mita's Minefield' (Interview) - The Auckland Star, 23 June 1987, page B1
Peter Wells, 'Looking for Truth' (Review of Patu!) - The Listener, 9 July 1983
Unknown writer, 'Koha' in 1981 Listener TV Annual, page 39 (Wellington: Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, 1981)
Unknown Writer, ''Merata Mita' (broken link) The University of Hawai'i. Accessed October 2008
'Memorial service for Merata Mita set for June 7' University of Hawai'i Mānoa website. Loaded 3 June 2010. Accessed 30 May 2024
Unknown Writer, 'Tamariki Ora: a New Beginning' (Press release) Scoop website. Loaded 11 June 2010. Accessed 30 May 2024
The Land Has Eyes website (broken link). Accessed October 2008