"We& #39;ve reached the Me Too moment for race" - Michelle Law (Screenwriter, Actor).
Māori, Pasifika and POC television and film practitioners in Aotearoa, the time has come to make a stand. The industry is systemically racist & it needs to stop.

It& #39;s unacceptable that Pākehā producers receive millions of taxpayer $$ to tell Māori & Pasifika stories. Meanwhile, brown filmmakers beg for crumbs, are gaslit & told they aren& #39;t experienced enough to get funded mainstream budgets. Some of these practitioners have 20+ yrs exp!

If we continue to stay silent out of fear of being blacklisted, that tells me we only care about ourselves and our own careers. That is not being & #39;about the people& #39; the way some of us like to claim we are https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🙄" title="Gesicht mit rollenden Augen" aria-label="Emoji: Gesicht mit rollenden Augen">What industry do we want the next generation of filmmakers to inherit?

Our pākeke went to the barricades to fight for us 30 years ago! Merata & Barry sacraficed so much for us to be where we are today. It& #39;s a disrespect to their legacies that this industry is still in the same disgraceful state decades after! Why are we still here?

We can& #39;t hope that the funders and network execs magically have a change of heart and the systemic racism that plagues our industry will suddenly disappear. There is a key ingredient to making movements happen and that is the POWER OF THE PEOPLE.