Ava DuVernay’s ‘13th’ at NZ’s Parliament
Ava DuVernay’s ‘13th’ screened at New Zealand’s Parliament on 13 July 2020. This post has two parts. The first was written as background before the screening. The second includes some photographs from the event and a link to audio recordings from it.
Part 1: Screening Background
Ava DuVernay’s ‘13th’ will screen at New Zealand’s Parliament, in the Beehive Theatrette, on 13 July, as one of the #DirectedByWomen #Aotearoa pop-up screenings. A documentary about criminalisation and the myths that have been perpetuated about black people in the United States, it resonates with the New Zealand experience, where — thanks to colonisation — Māori are over-represented at every stage in the criminal justice system.
Misha Ketchell wrote recently that compared with Pākehā, Māori are six times more likely to be handcuffed, 11 times more likely to be subdued with pepper spray, six times more likely to be batoned, nine times more likely to have dogs set on them, ten times more likely to be tasered and nine times more likely to have firearms drawn against them by police.Over the past decade, two-thirds of all victims of fatal police shootings have been Māori or Pasifika.
For almost every category of crime, a Māori who is convicted is more likely to be sent to prison than someone who is not Māori. As a result, Māori, who are about 16 per cent of the population, make up more than 50 per cent of the prison population.
Māori women make up 65 per cent of New Zealand’s female prison population, according to the most recent statistics I’ve seen. An estimated 74 per cent of them are mothers and 23,000 children have parents in prison. A further grim reality is that most people in the criminal justice system have been abused: 53 per cent of women and 15 per cent of men in prison have experienced a sexual assault and 77 per cent of all people in prison have been victims of violence.
A very recent Act of Parliament restored prisoners’ right to vote, but only if their sentence is less than three years.
Green MP Jan Logie will host this event in association with #DirectedByWomen #Aotearoa. Nicole Inskeep will introduce ‘13th’ and after it screens experts Awatea Mita and Julia Whaipooti will join Jan to discuss local mass incarceration and the work of transforming the justice system in New Zealand.
(If you’re in Wellington and would like an invitation, please email 13th.screening.at.Parliament@gmail.com.)
Ava DuVernay and ‘13th’
Ava DuVernay grew up in Compton, California, where there was ‘a lot of police aggression’ and ‘prison was always present’ and majored in African-American Studies at university, where she learned about the historical context of her lived experience. She’s said: ‘This is a topic that I’ve been passionate about and always have been...[it]has been integrated into so much of my filmmaking work’. Her second feature film, ‘Middle of Nowhere’, which won the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, is about a woman grappling with her husband’s incarceration and how that affects the family. In her acclaimed TV series ‘Queen Sugar’ there are storylines about incarceration.
When Netflix approached Ava to make a documentary and gave her the freedom to do whatever she wanted, she seized the opportunity to interrogate the black experience of incarceration more deeply. ‘13th’ was the result: the title refers to the idea of using prisoners for profit, enabled by the 13th amendment to the American Constitution, which abolished slavery throughout the United States in 1865 and ended involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for conviction of a crime. ‘13th’ was nominated for many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and won many, among them Best Documentary at the British Academy Film Awards, several Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award for Excellence.
Ava has said that —
‘…it was a challenge to take generations and generations of oppression and try to make that manageable and palatable, something that folks can drink in, get into their bloodstream, and then actually feel it and understand it. The process was very intimate, detailed, painstaking. This is an editor’s showcase, really. My editor, Spencer Averick, is the only editor I’ve ever worked with, from my very first shorts, on every single film and every commercial, and we’ve done docs together before. We came into this project knowing that these issues are important, and that this was definitely the biggest thing we’ve ever tackled. The cutting-room floor is full of sequences about different parts of this web that we were trying to untangle. This could definitely have been a six-hour miniseries.’
She’s also stated that ‘[‘13th’ is] something that is perfect for Netflix, because I don’t think people would ever go to the theater for it — it’s too public, it’s too intimate, it’s too interior, it’s too [much about] grappling with our demons’. But I’m delighted that Netflix has now made ‘13th’ freely available for groups to screen, without charge, because in the intimate Beehive Theatrette we can come together as a small community to watch and discuss the film and its relevance to the webs that need to be untangled in New Zealand.
Warm thanks to Ava DuVernay, to her producer Howard Barish who so kindly explained to me what was possible.
Thanks too, to LMC, the event’s funder, to our photographer Adrienne Martyn; and to Barbara Ann O’Leary, catalyst for the global #DirectedByWomen project.
Mass incarceration and the justice system in New Zealand
The New Zealand government has pledged to reduce the prison population by 30 per cent in 15 years and is working towards that, with some success. It has also established Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata, Safe and Effective Justice, a cross-sector initiative set up to help guide the transformation of the criminal justice system and create a safer New Zealand.
Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata is developing long term solutions to:
- keep communities safe
- address pathways to offending, so that we can respond better to criminal behaviour
- deliver better outcomes for everyone who experiences the justice system.
There’s also the Department of Corrections’ Wahine e rere ana ki te pae hou — Women’s Strategy 2017–2021. It provides interventions and services that meet women’s needs and manages them in ways that are trauma-informed, empowering, and reflect the importance of relationships to women. Its focus underpins Home Ground, a visionary and Creative New Zealand-funded programme designed by and for its participants, using the arts and creativity to address the challenges faced by women in New Zealand’s justice system and their whānau.
But there are strong arguments for more radical changes, like those recorded in Ināia Tonu Nei — The Time is Now: We Lead, You Follow, a report released almost exactly a year ago, which captures the kōrero (discussion) at a national Hui (meeting) for Māori, held in Rotorua to discuss Māori experiences with the justice system.
As someone with limited knowledge of this topic, I found the report very clear and easy to read. And totally persuasive as a proposed strategy for achieving justice for all, when read against the background of inspiring Māori-led initiatives in contexts I’m more familiar with, which have been great news for all New Zealanders.
It isn’t often enough acknowledged I think — that although dispossessed and under-resourced by the Crown, their Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi partner for 180 years, Māori lead strongly in many all-New Zealand sectors, most recently in initiatives that have kept our communities safe during the COVID emergency.
Māori also lead in many cultural institutions. For instance, at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand Arapata Hakiwai is Kaihautū | Māori Co-leader; Marten Rabarts is Festival Director | Kaiwhakatere of the New Zealand International Film Festival Whānau Marama; Chris Szekely leads the Alexander Turnbull Library, the national research library; Tanea Heke is Tumuaki |Director Toi Whakaari the national drama school; Honiana Love is Chief Executive |Tumu Whakarae at Ngā Taonga, our audiovisual archive.
In the screen sector as a whole, Māori leadership has been outstanding. These facts are well-known:
- Seven of the ten all-time top-grossing New Zealand feature films domestically are by and/or about Māori;
- Internationally, Taika Waititi is one of our best-known filmmakers and many more Māori contribute strongly at a global level, including Māori women like Ainsley Gardiner, Libby Hakaraia and Chelsea Winstanley, thanks to their participation in major festivals like Sundance, imagineNative, Toronto and Berlin, their increased presence within other parts of the wider industry outside New Zealand and their warm relationships with indigenous filmmakers; and
- Although under-resourced via government funding, vibrant Māori-led film businesses like Piki Films and Brown Sugar Apple Grunt, and at least one non-profit — Māoriland — go from strength to strength.
I don’t think this happened by accident. Instead, it happens because of the way Māori screen workers practice, which isn’t always recognised and appreciated by the rest of us. For instance, Māori researchers Rachel Wolfgramm and Ella Henry found that Māori women screen workers were embedded in the community and drew strength from their collective social identity, (unlike non-Māori women, who focused largely on “the job” and how their screen work supported and advanced their individual career trajectories). They were also committed to visual sovereignty, determined ‘to gain the right to tell their stories in their own voices with passion and authenticity…their leadership struggles [were] interwoven in histories of colonisation and the struggle for political, social and economic justice’. (1)
Being embedded in the community means Māori filmmakers make a profound investment in nourishing people and relationships, using highly effective and long-established cultural practices like manaakitanga, the process of showing respect, generosity and care for others. To give just one example, Ainsley Gardiner, when producing Taika Waititi’s Boy (2010) — which achieved the second-highest-ever gross for a New Zealand film at the local box office — drew on elements that are shared across many Māori enterprises within and outside the screen sector:
‘I’ve always had this idea that making films should feel like being at school camp or a family reunion where every aspect of being is catered to. Eating well, sleeping well, being with good people…With Boy, my goal was to develop a way of working and shooting that suited people’s families…So people were welcome to bring their spouses and children. We had a daycare set up. I had my own kids there, with Tammy and Mum.’
It’s my understanding Ainsley Gardiner, like and with other Māori filmmakers, has continued to develop this way of working through a series of successful features that include The Breaker Upperers (on Netflix), Waru and the forthcoming Cousins, an adaptation of Patricia Grace’s classic novel.
If we work on a Māori-led project, we all benefit from these practices and the associated fun and laughter that maintain wellbeing and enhance creativity. We also benefit because they ensure that bullying and sexual harassment are less likely to flourish. I’ve heard many many stories about bullying and sexual harassment in the local screen industry and New Zealand is now in the midst of #metoo revelations, but not one of the stories I’ve heard has been tied to a Māori-led project.
If we have have some other kind of relationship to the work, including our participation as audiences that enjoy it at home or elsewhere we benefit too, from its quality as entertainment.
I and many others have also experienced having ‘every aspect of being’ catered to at Māoriland’s annual film festival, also an outstanding and rare example of leadership in programming, because at least half the films selected are directed by women, every year.
And where we’re fortunate enough to be invited to participate within a Māori framework in other screen-related contexts, we also benefit. For instance, at an all-comers consultation about the government’s Screen Sector Strategy last year there were few Māori amongst us. But within a day led by a Māori and structured according to Māori values we worked towards a collective goal in a safe and productive environment. There’s no doubt (for me) that because the day began with formalities that included prayer and each one of us greeting every single other participant with respect for them and for their ancestors, our shared wellbeing was enhanced. As a result our respectful and energetic engagement continued throughout the day.
Because these aspects of the powerful Māori contribution to and investment in the industry are slightly ‘hidden’ to most of us most of the time, we probably don’t adequately recognise and acknowledge them and the full significance of the leadership involved. Māori-led screen projects have economic, social and globally transformative potential if a more appropriate level of government funding were offered. But that hasn’t happened yet. (What if the most recent post-COVID major funding allocation for the screen sector had included a substantial and autonomous Māori component?)
With all this in mind, back to Ināia Tonu Nei — The Time is Now: We Lead, You Follow and another kind of possible Māori investment in our collective well-being.
Ināia Tonu Nei — The Time is Now: We Lead, You Follow is based on time-tested research and practice. It hasn’t come from nowhere. It acknowledges that, ‘over many generations, Māori have provided significant kōrero, research, evidence and commentary explaining a Te Ao Māori [the Māori world’s] view on justice reform’. It also acknowledges ‘the ongoing work, advocacy and leaders who have sacrificed their lives to improve the wellbeing of Māori. The aim of this report is to complement the ongoing work and research in this area’.
Lawyer Khylee Quince is one of those who’ve undertaken this ongoing work. She’s ‘consistently surprised, and quite horrified, at how little Pākehā New Zealanders know about us. How little they understand about how we think. About the way that we do things. About our priorities and views on how the world should be organised’ . As she says, ‘…there were laws here before the colonisers arrived…We sorted out disputes differently. We had fully formed systems of law and social regulation’. Why not acknowledge the strengths of these valuable systems and support Māori leadership by prioritising well-tested Māori practices within the justice system, practices that will offer Māori (and the rest of us) better lifelong health and wellbeing, outside prisons?
These practices are simple to understand, appreciate and advocate for, I think. Especially (but not only) if we’ve had some experience of Māori leadership in other contexts. From my knowledge of Māori screen sector practices that prioritise relationships, for instance, I ‘got it’ when I heard Awatea Mita state that in the criminal justice context ‘From a Māori perspective…it’s about who caused the harm, who experienced the harm, how can we all collectively take responsibility for healing that harm. Are we as a society going to choose punishment or treatment, health or handcuffs… If we’re serious about reducing harm and making our society safer, we would have rehab available wherever there’s a District Court’.
Ināia Tonu Mai makes two main recommendations for action, to take place within a Mana Ōrite system that puts Māori at all levels of decision-making—
- Immediately start to decolonise the justice system, to provide instant relief to processes that continue to harm Māori.
- Immediately start designing an intergenerational plan to reform the justice system. This includes starting work in areas such as constitutional reform, to ensure the reform of the justice system is enduring and reflects the commitment that the Crown made when signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi back in 1840.
When I read ‘constitutional reform’ I immediately thought of lawyer Moana Jackson and his work and was thrilled to see this in my timeline today. As always he lays it all out with a clarity that compels me.
There’s lots to learn, and will be lots to watch and listen to on 13 July!
Many thanks, again, to Jan Logie for hosting this screening (the fifth #DirectedByWomen #Aotearoa screening in Parliament). And many thanks to Nicole, Awatea and Julia for their willingness to share their experience and thoughts with us.
More About the Contributors
Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay is an American filmmaker, a writer, director, producer and film distributor, based in Los Angeles. As well as ‘13th’, her directorial work includes the historical drama ‘Selma’, and Disney’s ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, which made her the highest-grossing black woman director in American box office history and the multi-award-winning ‘When They See Us’, based on the infamous case of The Central Park Five.
She also oversees production on her ‘Queen Sugar’ and her OWN series ‘Cherish the Day’.
One of the things I most love about Ava DuVernay is her assertion that ‘If your dream is only about you it’s too small’: her global leadership of the debates about inclusive practices and her exemplary commitment to inclusiveness on all her projects seem to be part of this. ‘Queen Sugar’ is celebrated for employing an all-women directorial team over all four seasons, for instance. As well, Ava amplifies independent film by people of colour and women filmmakers of all kinds, globally, through her non-profit film collective Array. Among the films Array distributes is Heperi Mita’s ‘Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen’.
She also sits on the advisory board of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and chairs the Prada Diversity Council.
I also love it that Ava’s not scared to go into difficult places and conversations and always seems to do so with grace and courage and clarity and good humour.
Another thing I love is her hope.
And one outcome I’d love from the upcoming screening is that it will help inspire realistic hope right here, for positive change in the justice system, led by Māori and cherished by us all.
Jan Logie
Jan Logie is a Green MP and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice, a champion for people and families affected by domestic and sexual violence, and a tireless and highly effective worker for human rights for all, including prisoners right to vote. Among other activities, she’s initiated a select committee inquiry into funding for specialist sexual abuse and social services, and introduced the Workplace Victims’ Protection Act that gave people affected by domestic violence legal protection in the workplace. And, as Lorna Kanavatoa says, thinking of the environment as a person and a community, Jan’s work there is vital, too.This is the fifth #directedbywomen #aotearoa screening Jan has hosted.
Nicole Inskeep
Nicole Inskeep is a New Zealand based African American racial justice advocate. She is passionate about the need to pursue criminal justice reforms as the daughter of an incarcerated father who served over 20 years in prison. Before moving to New Zealand, Nicole volunteered as a youth mentor for several years within South Australian Indigenous Aboriginal communities. During her teenage years in the US, Nicole was involved in a range of community youth outreach programmes aimed at advancing positive wellbeing outcomes for disadvantaged and marginalised African American youth. More recently, Nicole has been a powerful and influential voice in New Zealand’s Black Lives Matter rallies in Wellington and continues to push for equality in all spaces despite the associated adversities.
Awatea Mita
Awatea Mita (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Pikiao) is currently a Criminology Honours student at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. She works for RPA: the professional association representing the growing number of New Zealand providers of Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices. Awatea is a passionate advocate for indigenous rights and incarcerated people. Her advocacy comes, in part, from lived experience of the criminal justice system, which she has written about here and here.
Julia Whaipooti
Julia (Ngāti Porou) is a passionate advocate for systemic change in the criminal justice system and has worked in the Community Law movement as the National Māori Co-ordinator, lawyer and advocate and as a Senior Adviser in the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. She was a member of the Government’s Advisory Group for The Safe and Effective Justice Programme Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata, created to reform the criminal justice system and create a safer New Zealand. She is also the spokesperson for JustSpeak, a youth-powered movement for transformational change of criminal justice towards a fair, just and flourishing Aotearoa.
Last year, Julia led a delegation of young Māori to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York and presented an intervention calling for criminal justice reform. Julia has a deep understanding of the complex social justice issues that have not met the needs of children and young people entering the criminal justice system.
Julia believes in the power of young people’s experiences and voices to be powerful agents for change. She is the proudest aunty to five and imagines an Aotearoa where her whanau, and children of future generations have an equal opportunity to imagine and reach their potential.
Lorna Kanavatoa
Lorna Kanavatoa is of Te Atiawa, Ngati Kahungunu, Niue Island and Papua New Guinea heritages. She is mana whenua here in the Wellington region and, as part of #directedbywomen #aotearoa from the beginning, leads us in our Parliamentary screenings. As a former lecturer in Women’s Studies at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, she taught Images of Women & Women as Image-makers, Women in Society and team taught Oral History among other courses. In addition, Lorna was a Marae-based manager and lecturer at the University marae. She has been a Policy Analyst at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and currently is Project Coordinator at the Vakaola Pacific Community Health. Her team co-designed and produced education videos on Suicide Prevention with Tokelau and Niue Island families and community members.
Reference
(1) Wolfgramm, R. & Henry, E. (2015). Wahine Toa, Māori women warrior leaders in the screen industry. In S. Madsen, F. Wambura Ngunjiri, K. Longman & C. Cherrey (eds.), Women and leadership around the world (pp. 269–286, at 275). Charlotte NC: International Leadership Association, Information Age Publishing.
Part 2: The Screening Record
Our lovely photographer Adrienne Martyn wasn’t available right through the screening, but documented the happy pre-screening meetup at Backbenchers and the introduction before the screening, in images like these.
Soundtech kindly recorded the event in two parts.
The first part at the link (54 minutes) is the discussion with Jan, Awatea Mita and Julia Whaipooti, followed by some closing remarks from Lorna Kanavatoa.
The second part (21 minutes) includes the introductions, from Lorna Kanavatoa, Jan Logie and Nicole Inskeep.
