When you google pictures of Chelsea Winstanley (Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāi Te Rangi) you are bombarded with images of Hollywood! Glam! Red carpets! The Oscars! Frocks! Celebs! And those walls with logos all over them that only A-listers get asked to stand in front of.
But it’s just a moment in time, according to this talented film-maker.
Yes, the 46-year-old lived and worked in Los Angeles for a while. Yes, the producer and director was nominated for Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars for Jojo Rabbit (although more importantly, was the first indigenous woman to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award).
Yes, this wahine who grew up in Mount Maunganui, won the Grand Prix Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival for the anthology Waru, alongside eight other talented wāhine Māori film-makers.
Yes, the mother of three, has worked with Disney creating te reo Māori versions of Moana and is now set to release Lion King and Frozen. And yes, she’s worn designer frocks by Kiri Nathan and others.
“But,” she says, dressed in a singlet ready for yoga, at her home in Tāmaki Makaurau, “The thing about Hollywood and even the Oscars is, it’s a business, and when you understand that you understand the culture and the film industry at large. It is not reflective of reality, and it helps to understand how fabricated it can be”.
I’m talking to Winstanley over Zoom in her home office. Just as our kōrero begins, her youngest daughter Matewa struts in, in cowboy boots with a pink glittery heel and a smile that would melt ice cream; the colourful life of a mother.
Changing the game
When Winstanley first started out as a film-maker, after graduating top of her class at AUT, she thought she would only direct documentaries.
“All I wanted to do was get behind the camera and make the thing. I love capturing stories. Watching Mereta’s [Mita] films like Bastion Point and Patu! I thought, ‘that’s what I wanted to be!’ But during my first job at Kiwa [Productions], I fell into producing because one of the producers left to have a baby. Sometimes I’ve wrestled with it, thinking, damn, I missed out on my director trajectory, but I’m at peace with that now because producing helps me understand how to be a better director.”
One of her recent producing coups was getting the film, Merata: How Mum Decolonised The Screen, about the mighty Merata Mita – a film-maker every Kiwi should celebrate – onto Netflix. The film is directed by Merata’s son, Hepi Mita, and produced by Winstanley alongside Cliff Curtis and Te Arepa Kahi.
“As a producer, I was thinking ‘what’s the best thing I could do to make sure Hepi’s mum’s story never gets buried’. I had heard of [film-maker] Ava DuVernay. She started her career as a publicist and when she started making films as a director, no-one would distribute her. She’s a black woman. So she started distributing them herself – and now she’s this powerhouse, who supports women, people of colour, minorities, all denominations. She was the only person I could see who would take care of this film, I knew I had to get a screener to her.”
Merata Mita was a mentor to Winstanley and taught her the importance of story sovereignty – controlling the story from script to screen – and Winstanley was able to announce DuVernay’s distribution at Sundance in 2019.
“As a producer, despite the success of JoJo Rabbit, I would say that moment thus far in my producing career would be the highlight. I have hope when I see people like Ava changing the game for women to participate in the whole process of film-making.”
‘For me, that’s freedom’
There’s been lots of recognition for Winstanley’s films, receiving gongs for many projects including What We Do In The Shadows, Jojo Rabbit, Waru, Meathead, and Night Shift. But perceived success, like Hollywood images and the Oscars, only shows the shiny parts.
She’s also had her share of curveballs thrown her way. She’s talked openly about childhood trauma: abuse and her parents separating when she was 7. Being a young solo mother at 23, and attending university full time, only to suffer a horrific car accident that left her unable to walk for six months.
She lost her mentor, Merata, who collapsed right outside Māori Television when they were working on a film together Saving Grace, Te Whakarauora Tangata and Winstanley had to complete it without her. “It wasn’t my story to finish,” she says. Yet her outlook is as fresh and grounded as her storytelling.
