Witi Ihimaera in Montreal

The great Maori filmmaker Merata Mita (1942-2010) came to Montreal in 2003 at the invitation of First Peoples’ Festival, when a retrospective of her films was presented at the Cinémathèque québécoise. In 2023, another major figure in Maori culture will honour us with her presence: author Witi Ihimaera. Merata Mita was producer, interviewer and consultant for a 1997 documentary that portrays the already famous writer. It’s this film that we’re offering online: Witi Ihimaera intimate talks to us about his art; we accompany him to his family; we follow him to the great ceremonial house of Rongopai de Waituhi, (which holds such a large place in his works) and we travel to Menton, France, to the Kathleen Mansfield Memorial; then we find him at the University of Auckland with his colleagues and students.