by James Mottram
Film festivals are curious places, especially when you consider a showcase like Berlinale. The official selection of the Berlin Film Festival comprises of several high-profile strands, from films vying in the main competition for the Golden Bear to sidebars like Perspectives and Generations. But this is just a fraction of the movies present, thanks to the European Film Market. The EFM is one of the biggest movie marketplaces in the world, where directors and producers come to meet sales agents and distributors in the hope of getting their projects launched into the world.
The question is, how do you navigate that, especially if you’re a young filmmaker travelling from the other side of the globe? “It’s my first Berlin, my first market,” explains producer Abba-Rose Vaiaoga-Ioasa [left]. “I travelled all the way from New Zealand to experience my first market here, and it’s been quite overwhelming. Even just knowing how to set up meetings. Who do you go and pitch to? Who are the sales agents that we might be interested in?”
Vaiaoga-Ioasa is hardly a newbie. She and her writer-director brother Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa have completed several films, including 2018’s Hibiscus & Ruthless and 2019’s Take Home Pay. Self-funded and self-distributed, these titles got out there through sheer persistence, beginning with 2016’s Three Wise Cousins. “Stallone went to the cinemas directly, and they gave him one screening. It sold out. They gave him a second screening. It sold out. The theatres were like, ‘I don’t know what’s happening!’”
With their films self-distributed in New Zealand, Australia, parts of the U.S. and across the Pacific, Vaiaoga-Ioasa and her brother then partnered with Madman Films to do the post-theatrical distribution. “But that’s a huge, huge risk, and a lot of our indigenous filmmakers can’t take that. I just don’t understand how people can’t understand that there is an audience that will show up for our stories, and that they do deserve the silver screen.”
Naturally, these sibling filmmakers are ambitious enough that they want to now engage with film financiers – with Vaiaoga-Ioasa arriving in Berlin with a new project, written by her brother, entitled Let Me Serve. “It takes place in the competitive world of Christian Church volleyball,” she explains. The plot follows the son of a pastor who has stolen money from the church. “Nobody wants to be in the team with the son of a thief, and so he has to find others who have actually been excommunicated from their churches!”
So far, Vaiaoga-Ioasa has been testing the waters, meeting film folk from all over the world who have come to Berlin. The feedback, to date, has been good. “Luckily enough, distributors are apparently looking for comedies, for uplifting stories,” she says. Nevertheless, it’s an arduous trek to get indigenous stories on the big screen. “A lot of people make the assumption that our stories are not commercially viable,” she adds. “Pacific filmmaking is still quite young, but the more that we can get our stories out there [the better].”
Thankfully, help is at hand – thanks to the Indigenous Cinema Alliance (ICA). “Indigenous Cinema Alliance is made up of several international indigenous films organisations from all over the world,” explains the ICA’s Project Manager Amee Le. With several key aims, a major priority of the ICA is to promote wider distribution of native and indigenous films – whether it’s films playing in the Berlinale or those that are simply market-ready and are seeking distribution.
With the ICA’s partners from all over the globe, including organisations in Canada and Latin America, this year, Vaiaoga-Ioasa has been able to introduce the Pacific Island Screen Artists (PISA) Group, which she co-founded. “We are a not-for-profit organisation based in Aotearoa, New Zealand that advocates for Pacific Island screen artists,” she explains. “So, everyone from producers, writers, directors, actors… anything related to screen. And this is our first year with the Indigenous Cinema Alliance.”
In total, the ICA is representing 29 titles this year. At its stand at the EFM – held in the impressive Martin Gropius building in the Potsdamer Platz area – there are posters aplenty for juicy-looking titles seeking that all-important distribution deal. Among them, Australian horror film The Moogai.
“We also have a fellowship that the partners, all the alliance partners, sponsor. What it does is it covers the cost for bringing the filmmakers here with their projects,” adds Cheryl Hirasa, the Executive Director at Pacific Islanders in Communications, a U.S.-based non-profit that is one of the partner members of the ICA. Also central to the ICA is the Toolbox Program, an initiative designed to support emerging indigenous filmmakers by providing them with access to resources, networking opportunities, and industry knowledge.
Vaiaoga-Ioasa is one of several to benefit from the fellowship this year, allowing her to come to Berlin for the first time. “It just removes that extra very expensive obstacle so that we can continue ensuring that people also understand that Pacific and indigenous stories have a place on the silver screen,” she says. “[I’m] trying to shift that mindset for a lot of these sales agents and distributors… to see the value in our stories and our audiences as well.”
Of course, there are breakout filmmakers like Taika Waititi, the Oscar-winning director behind Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Love and Thunder. “He’s got a unique voice. Authentically, he’s always Taika and I think that’s what comes through with all our filmmakers,” says Vaiaoga-Ioasa. According to Le, Waititi – whose early short Two Cars One Night was supported by the New Zealand Film Commission – is something of a one-off. “He’s an exception and not the norm,” she says. “Our mission is to make that the norm.”
Main Image: (clockwise from top left) Ka Whawhai Tonu, Bati, White Ochre (Ornmol), Standing Above the Clouds
