Writer-director Talatoa Stappard is an artist who tells the stories of her lineage, and his latest film, Marama, pays homage to the women of her ancestry who risked everything to do the same in more oppressive times.
In the Victorian-era horror revenge film available on VOD from Dark Sky Films and Watermelon Pictures, Marama (Ariana Osbourne) is a young Maori woman forced to travel from New Zealand to England on the promise of providing information about her heritage. Marama, separated from his parents early on, jumps at the opportunity, but soon receives a strange offer from a British Maori enthusiast (Toby Stevens). The writer of the letter had passed away, but he suggested that I stay and tutor his daughter. Dark visions and secrets are soon revealed as Malama grapples with her heritage in the shadow of her colonizers.
Ms Stuppard, who was born in New Zealand to a Maori mother and a British father, smiles warmly as she talks about her great-grandmother and identical twin sister, who were also born to a British father and a Maori mother. They were expelled from several schools by the time they were just 16 years old in 1896, but they still put on traditional performances from their hearts at a time when celebrating their ethnicity was frowned upon in society.
“It’s no exaggeration to say this was a rebellious cultural gesture, a rebellious act,” Stappard said.
After getting traditional Taamoko face tattoos and working as tour guides, the young women formed a musical group called Princess Rangiri and the Nine Maori Maids with other performers and toured the world touring New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
“When my mother told me these stories, I thought, ‘What must it have been like for a woman like my great-grandmother, with the scars on her face, to travel around the world singing and dancing and entertaining the people in her life who had colonized, and are still colonizing, her homeland?” he says. “What was it like?”
Curiosity and a drive to understand her heritage are Malama’s driving forces in the film. Stappard wanted to learn more about his own lineage, so he was able to build ideas from the experts around him.
“I was picking up little scraps like that from the Māori experts I worked with whenever I could,” he says. “If someone has a piece of jewelry, I’ll take it. If they’re offering something, I’ll take it. There’s probably a lot of embarrassing jewelry that wasn’t my idea, because I didn’t even know it was a thing. I wrote the script and tweaked it as much as I could. I just picked up ideas along the way and took in all the offerings I could get. It’s an honor. I didn’t have any first-hand experience of Maori times or Maori culture, so I really enjoyed it.”
One of the film’s key scenes (where Marama performs a ferocious Maori dance called a haka) was Stappard’s idea, but was made more impactful with the help of a traditional choreographer.
“It was a tense moment for me when we shot this, because all I had to do was write a line in the script that said, ‘Malama performs a ferocious haka of defiance and insults a disgusted audience,'” he says. “But we had to compose the haka because you can’t just use the tribe’s old haka. For me, that was the most difficult part of filming. There were extras, costumes, and the production was worried about whether they could make it all work because there were too many people to shoot it. It was a one-shot number, there was no movement or anything. But I never saw[Osborne]do that because I didn’t have the wheelhouse to tell her how to do it. She worked on the haka with a Maori consultant, Nahuia Coppa. I literally cried when I saw her language, her pronunciation, the way she carried it, especially the choreography and movement.”
Despite the beauty of the dance, the two requested a second take, which was an even more powerful performance. Stappard was stunned to discover that a subtle but significant change had taken place.
“The second time it was even better and I was able to finish the lap,” he says. “Of course I had to ask, ‘What the hell did you say to Ariana? What was the note?'” She said, “Oh, nothing big.” I just reminded her to use her dress as a weapon. ”
“Malama” ended up being a big hit with critics and film festivals, having its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and leading to enthusiastic screenings around the world, from the horror-focused Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans to the Zurich Film Festival.
But Stappard’s character and cultural journey is just beginning, as he says “Malama” is the first in a trilogy. Next up is “Anahira,” followed by “Taumanu,” which is based on a short film he made in 2022 and received funding from Television New Zealand. His guiding light for all three films is the Māori term for sonic direction.
“Filmmakers who say they don’t watch reviews for ‘Letterboxd’ are bullshit. I do, right? I watch them all,” he says. “What I like to say is, ‘This movie is too short. I want to know more! What happened?'” This is the beginning of a trilogy, so it’s funny that it even needs to be mentioned. There are three concepts that I focus on: Māori. Whakapapa is bloodline, whānau is family, and utu is revenge. ”
Watch the trailer for “Mārama” below.
