Fests Want Films
Ethnic & indigenous film festivals in Canada and USA seek submissions.
MOOSE FACTORY MOVIES
Weeneebeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival
Moose Factory Ontario
6th annual: March 5-9 08
Deadline: Dec 20 07
Grassroots community festival in James Bay area of Northern Ontario screening films about indigenous life by native filmmakers. May be the only native film fest with bear-hunting and ice-fishing.
Contact:
Fred Rickard
fredrickard@mac.com
NEW BROWN GREEN
Global Green Indigenous Film Festival
Santa Fe New Mexico
Inaugural: April 18-20 08
Deadline: Jan 18 08
National Tribal Environmental Council (NTEC) and New Mexico Tourism launch the first global green indigenous film festival screening at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe. Programming films and videos that address indigenous environmental concerns and issues.
Contact:
Charmaine Jackson-John
globalgreen@ntec.org
Tattooist US Release
Tatau spooks up the big screen in The Tattooist, a supernatural thriller with an evil Samoan spirit wreaking revenge over stolen tattoo tools. Jason Behr (Grudge) plays the white guy with hot brownies Robbie Magasiva (Sione’s Wedding), Mia Blake (No 2) and Dave Fane (Bro Town).
The film is a Singapore/New Zealand co-production produced by Robin Scholes (Once Were Warriors) with first feature director Peter Burger (Turangawaewae), shot by Leon Narbey (Whale Rider). It hit No 1. and $500K at the NZ box office in 2007.
Tattooist’s American release will be handled by Ghost House Pictures, horror genre label of Sam Raimi (Spiderman) and Rob Tapert (Xena), with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The distribution deal was done at AFM (American Film Market) with release slated for 2008.
Coming soon to a DVD near you.
The Tattoist trailer
Reviews
competent horror movie hanging off the bones of what might have been a really extraordinary New Zealand film
major disappointment
I love this movie
Tonga at All Roads
SCENES FROM THE OLD PLANTATION
Stuck in the taro patch again with tinned fish for lunch when all you want is corned beef
Director Paul Stoll (Tongan) serves up scenes of Tongan life in his short feature Tavake, featured in National Geographic’s All Roads Film Festival at Los Angeles, Washington and Santa Fe, Nov-Dec 2007. Paul and partner Sarah Del Seronde (Dine) shot on location in the kingdom with non-professional actors for his first narrative film.
Also screening at All Roads is Tearepa Kahi’s spectacular short feature Taua. Maori warriors and slaves drag a giant waka taua (war canoe) over a mountain in a sort of South Pacific Fitzcarraldo. Both films also screened at Hawai’i International Film Festival.
Pollywood Seeks Shorts
Aotearoa’s Pollywood Pacific Island Short Film Festival seeks submissions from Pacific Islander filmmakers for its 6th annual event screening in Auckland early March 2008.
The festival puts Pacific Island stories, culture, ideas, lifestyles and visions on screen. Pollywood 2007 featured Maree Webster’s Like Milk, about a young woman coming to terms with her skin color, and Miki Magasiva’s Rites of Courage on Pacific tattoo traditions.
Deadline is Dec 15 2007.
Send tapes to: Craig Fasi, Curator, 16 Church St, Onehunga, Auckland, New Zealand (pollywood@orcon.net.nz).
LA Skins Fest
Native American filmmakers are doing it for themselves with the premier of two new short dramatic films at the inaugural Los Angeles Skins Festival.
Kalani Queypo (Hawaiian, Blackfeet) wrote and directed his first short Ancestor Eyes, winner of the 2nd Annual Creative Spirit Script to Screen Competition produced by Inter-Tribal Entertainment. Veteran actress Tantoo Cardinal (Cree) plays the mother of a dying woman.
Co-Creative Spirit winner is Two Spirits : One Journey, a tale of Lakota love which dare not speak its name, written by first-timer Shawn Imitates Dog (Oglala Lakota).
An enthusiastic crowd of Hollywood skins (plus a few PI relations) packed into Paramount’s Sherry Lansing Theater for the Nov 10 screening.
The films are a project of the Southern California Indian Center, which serves as a hub for Indian Country L.A.
ANCESTOR EYES
Chamorro Direction
GU interviews Alex Munoz
Los Angeles-based Chamorro filmmaker Alex Munoz is profiled in the current issue of Guam’s GU magazine.
“Munoz has developed a reputation as a talented and innovative writer and film director whose work reflects his advocacy for social change … stylish, provocative and edgy … ”
Maui Canoes
Ho’oilina at LA Skins Fest
Pacific canoes launch onscreen at the first Los Angeles Skins Festival, a grassroots film and video festival hosted by LA’s Native American community Nov 9-11.
Filmmaker Maui Tauotaha (Hawaiian-Tahitian) premiers Ho’oilina: Continuing the Legacy on Sat 10 Nov 1pm at LA City College in Hollywood. Maui shot the short doc at Lahaina Festival of Canoes on Maui where his father and other kahuna kalai wa’a (canoe masters) from around the Pacific built and paddled traditional wooden canoes.
LA Skins Fest is organized by filmmaker Ian “Crazy Ind’n” Skorodin (Choctaw) with community screenings and events at Fox and Paramount studios, House of Blues and Autry Museum.
CANOE LAUNCH
Coconuts & Indians
PI Filmmakers at AIFF
Pacific Islanders screened films in the 31st annual American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco Nov 2-10. Both are award nominees.
Sarah del Seronde (Dine) and Paul Stoll (Tongan) debuted Making the River, a documentary tracing the protracted legal battles of American Indian prisoner Jimi Simmons. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature.
Karin Williams (Aotearoa/Cook Is) screened Yukon Circles, documenting tribal environmental protection on the Yukon River in Alaska and Canada over the past decade. Nominated for Best Documentary Short.
YUKON CIRCLES
Talofa Gary Cooper
Critics and audiences rave about My Name is Gary Cooper, latest act of theatrical subversion from Samoan-Kiwi writer Victor Rodger (Ranterstantrum, Sons) with preternatural Samoan hunk & muse Robbie Magasiva (Sione’s Wedding, Stickmen) in the title role. The play premiered at Auckland Theatre Company 20 Sept – 13 Oct 07.
Reviews
erotic, hilarious yet tragic
Theatreview
beneath the glibness is a tragic, soulful undertow
NZ Listener
+ it made me cry
+ emotional rollercoaster ride
+ an awesome play
Audience
HOLLYWOOD HULA ::: Pacific Islander Film Hui 
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