Loading Docs 2022 - Mana Over Meth

Our wāhine are suffering in silence while using meth to escape the pain of sexual abuse, depression and physical abuse and intergenerational trauma. Its time to break the silence. it will remain hidden if we don’t share out stories. We could feel our tupuna while we were making this doco. We let them guide and awhi us.

– Director Holly Beckham on the ethos behind Mana Over Meth, WomenMagazine, 20 November 2022

All my life I was holding so much guilt and shame, without realising all along I was holding something special, something no one can ever take away…I am Māori. And that's the greatest gift of all. Ko Jess toku ingoa.

– Jessica Apanui

Rehab taught me whanaungatanga, tikanga, te ao Māori, and more importantly, opened up the doors to my whakapapa.

– Jessica Apanui

This pain is not mine to bear alone. It descends through the generations, I summon my ancestors to deliver us from our pain.

– Jessica Apanui

I grew up around so much abuse at home. I was a fearful kid, terrified at times.

– jessica Apanui, at the start of this film

Jess and Holly's story forces us to truly listen. And it's a full-body listen. Not just with our ears. Absorbing a specific woman's story, we bear witness and cannot help but see ourselves in her shoes. We see ourselves, and other women we know in those eyes. What is importantly different here is that this is a story about reclaiming mana .

– Hinemoa Elder pays tribute to the film in The NZ Herald, 29 October 2022