Why I’m fangirling for Ava
Filmmaker, producer and director Ainsley Gardiner was last week announced as a new member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, giving her the chance to vote for the next Oscars.
IAs a Ma¯ ori filmmaker, I take the responsibility, along with the privilege, that I have in being able to make films.
found out I had been made a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the professional organisation that, among other things, holds and awards the Oscars, the same time you did. Maybe even later; I had people congratulating me before I received the email.
I actually had forgotten that I’d been approached to make an application and then the Oscars had rolled around and I figured I hadn’t made it, so it was awesome news. It’s a great honour.
I guess I’ve kind of grown up with the feeling that the Oscars was the be all and end all of making it in the film industry. Taika Waititi and I were exposed to it really early when Two Cars, One Night was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film in 2005, so there’s always a little bit of mystique and a little bit of prestige associated with it.
Over time, I’ve come to understand that other than just getting to watch the films and voting – which is super cool – actually it’s an opportunity to create change at quite a significant level. What I’m finding more appealing is the opportunity to be part of the Academy at a time when, in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite and #MeToo, there’s quite a big political groundswell happening.
As a Ma¯ ori filmmaker, I take the responsibility, along with the privilege, that I have in being able to make films. The Oscars are a big, old institution, but they’re so emblematic of Hollywood and that’s where so many of the films that influence us in New Zealand are made. There’s so many Hollywood films now that are made in New Zealand – it’s still such a massive machine that we’re part of, so whatever changes we can make in that large global machine will absolutely have resonance and impact in local communities.
Hollywood is definitely aware of the importance of representation now. Parasite winning Best Picture in 2020 really started to show that films that are culturally specific, and the language of that culture, can really impact on the film industry.
I’m a New Zealand filmmaker, and I’m most interested in telling our stories, but there is a universality to them. Take Cousins, the film version of the Patricia Grace novel, which I co-produced. We showed it in Australia, and it was really heartbreaking, but also really healing for those audiences to talk about their Stolen Generation. In Canada there’s multiple bodies being found where children have been killed and died of neglect in residential schools, and that’s the same in America as well.
It’s been picked up for distribution in the UK, North America and Ireland by Array, which is Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s company. One of the things that was most important in those territories, particularly the US and Canada, was trying to get it in front of indigenous audiences there in a cinematic environment.
Part of the power of Cousins is that it speaks to a lot of the intergenerational trauma of those nations as well, but actually watching it in a shared space is so important to start conversations. So one big reason for going with Array is it’s absolutely committed to reaching the specific audiences that the film is targeting.
But I’ll be honest, there’s a lot of fangirling here for Ava DuVernay. She’s just really cool. You know, sometimes you meet people, and you feel so uncool compared to them? That’s what Ava DuVernay does to you, but she’s so lovely, she’s gorgeous and, as only really super powerful people can be I guess, she’s just so humble and so generous. That integrity is something that I hope people think of me, but I love to partner with others for whom integrity is one of the predominant values that they have.