Creative City of Aotearoa

Leo Koziol (Ngati Rakaipaaka, Ngati Kahungunu and Polish American descent)
Film, events, web design, writing, planning/urban design

Favourite Tools
Powerpoint – I think visually, v. powerful tool even though it's by evil Microsoft
Dreamweaver – like the simplicity of the older programme, without bells and whistles
Fireworks for Basic Graphic design
Google Earth blows my mind, as a person interested in geography and planning it amazes me that this tool is now available online, look at the little houses in Florianopolis!
Internet – Youtube exploded on to the scene, creating a cultural revolution
Wikipedia is similarly transformative – the world at our creative fingertips

Inspiration
1) My inner Wairua, the essence of my genetic memory and being raised in a Maori community with an innate sense of spiritual engagement and connection, living and loving and being loved
2) Absorption of mediasphere, Internet TV audio urban experience, living here and overseas, memory of San Francisco life, realisation of world’s current intense cultural renaissance
3) Engagement with natural world, spiritual reflection in this realm, engagement with kaitiaki of the Moana and the Ngahere, transcendence in the bush at Kaitawa, altered states of consciousness
3a) Both fear and wonder at all of the above

Listening To
Very eclectic. Samples: 1980s – Pet Shop Boys, Frankie, Style Council, Soft Cell/Marc Almond, Peking Man, Pseudo Echo, Tears For Fears, Milli Vanilli, The Smiths, Spandau Ballet, Scritti Politti. 1990s – Kylie (the deconstruction years), Madonna, Morrissey, Strawpeople, Sublime, New Order, Electronic, Erasure, Smashing Pumpkins, RuPaul, REM, Rent Soundtrack, Magnolia Soundtrack. 2000s – Belle & Sebastian, Magnetic Fields, Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, Pet Shop Boys, Travis, Trinity Roots, The Shins, Coldplay, Rufus Wainwright, Shortbus Soundtrack

Now Showing
My blog www.ahikaa.com
Wairoa Maori Film Festival www.manawairoa.com

My Big Idea
Much of my creative energy is directed to the Wairoa Maori Film Festival, which will next be occuring over Matariki Queen's Birthday 2008, and will also travel on to Auckland, Wellington and Taumarunui. The "Big Idea" is for the event to grow, with Nuhaka and Wairoa as "portals" for the energy of these works to gain exposure and profile, here and overseas.

My previous creative energies have included writing (my blog "Naked in Nuhaka" is at www.ahikaa.com) and graphic design. "Creative Ideas person". Currently I am exploring opportunities for an indigenous creative arts event to occur in Central Auckland in 2010, encompassing multimedia, design, film and visual arts (My next "Big Idea"…).

Email me: maorimovies@gmail.com

Links