About Merata Mita
Merata Mita (19 June 1942 – 31 May 2010) was a New Zealand filmmaker, producer, and writer, and a key figure in the growth of the Māori screen industry. Mita was the first indigenous woman and the first woman in New Zealand to solely write and direct a dramatic feature film Mauri (1988). == Early life == Mita was born on 19 June 1942 in Maketu in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. She was the third of nine children and had a traditional rural Māori upbringing. She was from the Māori iwi of Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāi Te Rangi. == Filmmaking career == Mita taught at Kawerau College for eight years, where she began using film and video to reach high school students characterised as "unteachable", many of them Māori and Pacific Islander. She learned that the film and video equipment helped her students with their education as it was a form of oral storytelling, where they could express themselves through various art forms, such as drawing and image. This experience led to Mita's interest in filmmaking. She initially started her filmmaking career by working with film crews as a liaison person, with her first documenta. Through these jobs, she discovered that foreign filmmakers had the access to tell the stories of Māori people, where she then decided to become a filmmaker herself.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.