One feature and a truckload of shorts head to Canada for next month’s imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, which plays in person and online.
Taratoa Stappard’s Mārama, coming off a successful trip to the Seattle International Film Festival, is the sole NZ feature in the mix, and was developed with the assistance of the imagineNATIVE Institute’s 2020 Screenwriting Features Lab.
Across its whole selection, imagineNATIVE will present 20 features. 82 shorts, plus a couple of dozen digital, interactive and audio titles. The festival also runs an industry programme.
The only NZ short having its world premiere at the festival is Jo Luping’s I Duok om I Bohuntung – The Owl and the Rainbow.
The NZ shorts in the mix include several which have already enjoyed success at other international festivals, such as Awanui Simich-Pene’s First Horse, Vea Mafile’o’s I Am Not Your Dusky Maiden and Ira Hetaraka’s Womb.
The other NZ shorts selected (alphabetically by title) are Raymond Edwards’ ACE, Allie Howell’s Ata Pūao, Dolina Wehipeihana & Louise Pōtiki Bryant’s HINA, Kimiora Kaire-Melbourne’s Homesteads: Whina Cooper, Giselle Ilaoa’s O Alofa Nei, O Alofa Nā (Love Me, Love You), Libby Hakaraia’s Pouākai (Raptor), Alexander Moruo & Markel Martynov’s Tankha, Jaimee Poipoi & Roo Reihana-Wilson’s The Rapture, and Sophie Hampson’s Washed Up,
The 2026 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, takes place June 2-7, 2026 (Toronto) and June 8-14, 2026 (online). The festival hands out its awards on 7 June (NZ date)
