Culture
A Māori Gothic Horror Film Is Our Oscar Pick. Good — Now Let’s Back More of Them
Mārama is New Zealand's submission for the 99th Oscars, not an Oscar nominee yet. Its selection invites a larger conversation about whose stories get funded.
New Zealand has put a Māori gothic horror film forward for the Oscars. That sentence ought to make the local screen industry sit up a little straighter — and perhaps ask why stories this distinctive still feel like an exception worth celebrating.
The New Zealand Film Commission announced on 12 October that Mārama, the debut feature of writer-director Taratoa Stappard, was Aotearoa's official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards. Stappard has whakapapa to Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa.
A necessary distinction: being New Zealand's official submission is not the same as being nominated for an Oscar. The Academy still has its own selection process. The value of the film does not depend on the outcome of that process.
Why 'international recognition' cannot be the only measure
Our creative industries have a familiar habit. A local artist makes something bold. It travels overseas. International attention arrives, and suddenly we all declare what a wonderful talent we had in our midst. The recognition is deserved; the delay can be embarrassing.
The Film Commission's film listing describes Mārama as a te reo Māori horror feature. It has been presented on the international festival circuit, and its selection reflects a confidence in the work's ability to speak across borders without sanding away its local identity.
That last point is worth lingering over. The international audience is not always asking for the tidiest, most familiar version of New Zealand. Sometimes specificity is the point. Sometimes the story that could only have been made here is precisely the story that travels.
Funding cannot be a standing ovation
One film's success does not establish that everything is healthy in the system around it. A screen sector needs pathways for first-time filmmakers, development time, skilled crews and opportunities for people whose stories have been crowded out by the usual commercial calculations.
The Film Commission's October update points to other emerging filmmakers and international industry activity. That suggests an ecosystem of effort. It also creates a fair challenge for public agencies, financiers and commissioners: can the pathways be made less exceptional and more dependable?
The argument is not that every script deserves a cheque. It is that the definition of commercial risk can be narrow, especially when the person assessing it has never seen a particular community's world represented as the centre of the narrative.
Let the work be strange
Horror has always had room for grief, history, power and the things polite society would prefer to leave buried. A Māori gothic film can operate on those levels without becoming an explanatory brochure for overseas viewers. Art should be permitted to be messy, surprising and even disquieting.
For more on the stories New Zealand chooses to tell about itself, visit The Zuardian's Culture section. We also revisit Sione's Wedding, another film that made its own community the centre of the story rather than the decoration around somebody else's.
Congratulations to Mārama for earning the opportunity to be considered. Now comes the harder question: will the next filmmaker with a similarly singular idea find a door already open?
