Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen

Jan 28, 2019

1h 28m

★ 6.7

Overview

This film is an intimate portrayal of pioneering filmmaker Merata Mita told through the eyes of her children. Using hours of archive footage, some never before seen, her youngest child and director Hepi Mita discovers the filmmaker he never knew and shares the mother he lost, with the world.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

New Zealand Film Commission

Te Māngai Pāho

Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen Trailers

Cast

Self (archive footage)

Merata Mita

Self - Narrator (voice)

Hepi Mita

Self

Rafer Rautjoki

Self

Richard Rautjoki

Self

Rhys Rautjoki

Self

Awatea Mita

Self

Eruera Mita

Self

Alanis Obomsawin

Self

Jesse Wente

Self

C.M. Kaliko Baker

Self

Tammy Haili'opua Baker

Self

Heather Rae

The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.

9.0

Inhabitants

Mar 19, 2021

For millennia, Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain their traditional land management practices. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land. As the climate crisis escalates these time-tested practices of North America's original inhabitants are becoming increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.

7.5

NUKED

Oct 22, 2023

The US detonated 67 nuclear weapons over the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War, the consequences of which still reverberate down four generations to today. "NUKED," is a timely new feature documentary focussing on the human victims of the nuclear arms race, tracing the displaced Bikinian's ongoing struggle for justice and survival even as climate change poses a new existential threat. Using carefully restored archival footage to resurrect contemporaneous islanders’ voices and juxtaposing these with the full, awesome fury of the nuclear detonations, NUKED starkly contrasts the official record with the lived experience of the Bikinians themselves, serving as an important counterpoint to this summer’s Oppenheimer.

0.0

Writing the Land

Dec 31, 2007

In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.

0.0

Xetá

Mar 15, 2010

No overview available.

0.0

They Are Sacred

Apr 27, 2025

Following young Anders and his father, Dr. Grant Bruno, of the Samson Cree Nation, this documentary gives viewers unique access to the world of an autistic child, and to follow his father’s journey to bring back traditional First Peoples perspectives in our contemporary world.

7.2

QT8: The First Eight

Oct 21, 2019

A detailed account of the life and artistic career of legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, from his early days as a video club manager to the scandalous fall in disgrace of producer Harvey Weinstein. A story about how to shoot eight great movies and become an icon of modern pop culture.

0.0

Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier

Nov 1, 1991

An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.

0.0

Gallipoli - The Dardenelles Campaign

Jan 1, 1996

An overview of one of the greatest disasters of the first World War WWI - the Dardanelles Campaign at Gallipoli, Turkey.

10.0

Documentário Brasil Tupinambá

Aug 9, 2021

No overview available.

7.0

Walkers of time

Mar 12, 2017

María is an Amorúa girl; an indigenous group that traveled the savannas of Orinoquía as nomads. She lives with her grandmother Matilde, her sister diana and her cousins in Puerto Carreño, in the Colombia-Venezuela border. The amorúa are considered wild and are not literate. Matilde wants her granddaughters to learn to write and read to live better in this town of "rational whites" as they call us. The director follows María's life for 8 years from her childhood to her adolescence and invites her to travel the places her grandma did as a nomad.

9.0

Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy

Apr 29, 2021

Follow filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as she creates an intimate portrait of her community and the impacts of the substance use and overdose epidemic. Witness the change brought by community members with substance-use disorder, first responders and medical professionals as they strive for harm reduction in the Kainai First Nation.

3.0

Foster Child

Mar 8, 1987

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.