M.A.T.C.H
Māoriland Tech Creative Hub
ANCESTOR’S GATE
EXPERIENCE / 2023 / Steve Diabo
The story of Indigenous language and cultural near-extinction, and later renaissance, has played out in parallel among the Indigenous peoples in North and South America, Australia and the Pacific, and elsewhere around the world.
We can all point to a past generation of our respective peoples, within memory, who spoke our languages maternally. Imagine yourself as one of the people of that generation — perhaps someone in your own family who you knew, or know about, or someone in the Native community where you’re from, or even their ancestors beyond that.
ATUATANGA
VR / 2023 / Wiremu Grace
Atuatanga takes you deep into a Maori post-apocalypse world using VR technology in the Quest 2 headset. This is the future destruction of our earth if we don’t take action now. The Turehu (fairy person, pictured) is your guide, as you travel to the realms of the Atua (Gods) to re awaken them and bring life back to the world. Come face to face with the powerful force of Tawhirimatea, god of wind and weather.
Fly through the underworld mycelium tunnels of Tane Mahuta (forest God) and sculpt Hine Ahuone (The God of Human form) from the sacred red clay of Kurawaka. In the uncertain future will you assist the Atua to save the planet?
TOMO VR
VR / 2022 / Gabrielle Thomas
Viewers will find themselves in a cavern of endless time, a world within a world, watching two travelling wairua (the bodiless self) and the generations of ancestors before them. Their mother holds the power of creation within her. She carries them in her womb and is the gateway to the world of light. She is a daughter, a sister and a mother in tapu (sacred). One traveller departs to the world of the living, the other transcends to the embracing arms of Hine Nui Te Po, the goddess of death.
TOMO VR was developed from the full-length stage show which premiered in Auckland, NZ in 2019 at Tempo Dance Festival and has recently toured NZ.
Voyaging Home
GAME / 2023 / Pohaikealoha Panoke
You’re a voyager like your ancestors before you, but in order to move forward, you first need to discover where you (and your ancestors) are from. Learn language and prepare for an Indigenous future in this personal adventure featuring beautiful ambient music and a heartfelt story among the stars.
Orange Pekoe
GAME / 2023 / Vanessa Racine
The year is 2173, and after a long ride home you still need to fetch some tea for an Elder. ‘orange pekoe’ is a browser-based game developed for web browser using Bitsy, a “small engine for small games”. It is set in a speculative future that reimagines open pit mining sites as an urban, Anishinaabe metropolis.
Hill Agency: PURITYdecay
GAME / 2023 / Meagan Irene Byrne
Murdered sisters, mind altering drugs and flying cities, to a case that goes way further than the banks of this one detective’s little neighbourhood in this Indigenous cybernoir detective narrative adventure set in a post-post-apocalyptical future.
Words Before All Else
Machinima / 2022 / Skawennati
Shot in a multiplayer online world, this movie features Skawennati’s avatar, xox, reciting the 18 verses of the traditional Thanksgiving Address.
A Metis Toy Story
ANIMATION / 2023 /Samantha Loney
A new Metis action figure must stop the battle between a Cowboy Teddy and Indigenous wooden horse toy.
Tala’s Bedtime Story
ANIMATION / 2023 / Peter Filimaua
After having a nightmare about his grandfather, Tala looks to his mother for answers. She recounts a tale about Tala’s grandfather and how he got his name. In this tale, she tells him about his grandfather’s friend, a monkey named Susie, and their journey to Pulotu, a place without light.
The Adventures with Auvvi & Friends
ANIMATION / 2023 / Lisi Makimmak Etok
Chums
ANIMATION / 2023 / Dennis Jackson, Eric Jackson
A rag tag group of furry friends on Turtle Island are discovering their relationship with the animals and their environment on Mother Earth.
Past Future Forward: The Making of a Hawaiian Video Game
DOCUMENTARY / 2022 / Jason Edward Lewis, Prem Sooriyakumar
The Bull of Cold
ANIMATION/ 2023 / Alexander Muruo
A little boy named Ayaal has a big dream to cut ice figures. He is 9 years old, and everyone’s favourite in a small Sakha village.
Nemi
ANIMATION / 2021 / Nicolás Zarco
Juana starts a normal day in her life, going to her local temple she meets a mysterious shadow, she follows it to find people from her past and in the middle of the ancient chinampas she faces an old pain to get reunited with her people.
Follow
ANIMATION / 2023 / Brent Beauchamp
A child named Nimkii follows a mysterious blue butterfly away from his mother deep into the thick of the forest. Once caught Nimkii quickly realizes the butterfly is something not from our world.
Allow Your Haerenga
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Waiongana Fruean Weeks
Realise, reveal/revel, reflect and release. A brief haerenga through the many faces and stages of grief. Stay as long as you need. Allow yourself space in time to scream, cry , wail, reflect and breathe.
Future Ready: Cusp
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / KJ Edwards
A temporal observation of nature, reflecting on the relational: the tethering of animal, earthly and human energies through moments of connection, both calm and chaotic, moving toward a shared future shrouded in uncertainty as the planet warms.
The River
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Piata Gardiner-Hoskins, Todd Karehana
When a young woman Mihi vanishes, three estranged cousins must reunite to solve the mystery of her disappearance, with all paths leading to a river that flows both ways – Waihara.
Ngahere
EXPERIMENTAL / 2021 / Kelly Nash, Nancy Wijohn
Bálvvosbáiki – Place of worship
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Marja Viitahuhta
Bálvvosbáiki (place of worship) continues a series of video works created by Marja Viitahuhta in collaboration with musicians Ánnámáret (yoik), Ilkka Heinonen (jouhikko) and Turkka Inkilä (electronic music).
The work is based on questions of human relationship with the environment, the wanderer’s mindset and the changing sense of time, as well as the Sámi world view in which people should take into account the heritage of past generations and preserve the conditions of life for future generations. The cross images and slow motion visualize the content of the wordless yoik. A tapestry of sounds created by Turkka Inkilä and Ilkka Heinonen’s jouhikko sing alongside the yoik.??
Whispers of Reindeer Milk
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Mihkkal Robertabártni Hætta
In an alternate Sápmi, a man travels to reclaim ancestral wisdom from the colonizers, going on a meditative journey through diverse northern landscapes.
Dau:añcut (Moving Along Image)
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Adam Piron
I Would Like to be Midnight / I Would Like to be Sky
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Amelia Winger-Bearskin
Who determines the protocol for looking at the sky? Like moss and fungi, animals and plants, and indeed most living beings, the sky does not have borders. It moves and is part of a larger system that includes the moon, the sun, and the stars.
Nuppi Bealde
EXPERIMENTAL / 2023 / Marja Viitahuhta
Saivo is lake with two bottoms, where spirits dwell. This yoik film shows the growing and disappearing glaciers, the gaps and the chasms and the deeps of the water and the surfacing ice.