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Chelsea Winstanley could be in Prague with her husband director, Taika Waititi. She could co-produce her latest film, Jojo Rabbit. Instead, she sits in a sun-drenched courtyard in Wellington
Winstanley leaves her daughters in Los Angeles and returns to New Zealand to complete a documentary about her idol, the pioneering Maori filmmaker, Merata Mita. 19659002] "I had to make this choice, if I did, I would not be there, I would not write shorts, I would not literally follow the path of my heart. Taika
"He told me that the other day," It was so arrogant of me to think that you would even follow my life. "It was really a great something to admit to him and it was so refreshing. "
Rejecting his head back, the 42-year-old man laughs, full lips framing sparkling white teeth. Winstanley laughs a lot during the two hours we spend together at Park Road Post while she's taking a break from scoring – improvement of color – work – on Merata.
It also reveals a lot about the dilemmas that women love about her face: being married to a successful man can be hard for the woman and mother of her children, especially when she has her own goals and projects underway … Merata is her "last hoorah" as a producer, before moving on to directing and writing movies.
Winstanley is hot now, is part of a movement She first worked with Waititi on the horror documentary "What We Do in the Shadows", but she does not want to hover behind the scenes while it is inside Wahine Toa, she wants to be ee for her own project She met Waititi in her twenties when she interviewed him for a documentary about Maori artists. They reconnected during the filming of Boy in 2010 and were married two years later.
In an email before meeting us, she tells me: "I'm fed up with women who live in the shadow of their partners, that's all." I did a film with him, I was a filmmaker before I met him and I keep doing my own thing. "
Despite being housed in Studio City in Los Angeles last May for Waititi's career, she was not the only filmmaker. is not interested in the glamor of Hollywood. Surprisingly down to earth, she is dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt and a crimson jumper under a black leather jacket. Her small feet are locked in Blundstone boots with fluffy crimson socks protruding from the top. The red stuffed animals cover his jeans. Winstanley laughs and wipes it.
On her right hand, she wears two turquoise rings that she bought at a pawn shop in Santa Fe while she was a consultant for the Sundance Film Festival
How about d & # 39; 39, an alliance? They got married in a registration office in New York. Waititi turned to his wife, took out a shiny marker, then pulled a tape on his ring finger, then pulled out another one by himself. Mimicking the clerk, Winstanley puts an American accent: "She said," Are you okay?
The newlyweds walked around New York, hand in hand, glued to ink.
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She was about 7 years old when she was sexually abused. Her abuser was someone she knew. She talked about this abuse before, but today reveals more intimate details. For years, she's angry. anger still invades from time to time, apparently from nowhere. She had "loads" of therapy. She had bad relationships, hanging on to people for the wrong reasons.
"I've been an angry person for most of my life and it's something I'm constantly working on … hard to imagine when you see me laugh like that, I guess"
Is she ever going to confront her abuser? She nods, black hair bouncing around her face, gray streaks catching the sunlight. is empathetic. "Everyone carries things with them, she says, including this person, so she would not complain.
The challenges of Winstanley's life informed her of her stories After Merata, she will focus on Found You, a short film she is writing based on her abuse, it is about a little girl who loses her friends On this trip to New Zealand, she plays for actors
Winstanley, recipient of the Mana W Award Ahine of Women in Film and Television in 2015, also writes a US-funded short film about an Iranian homosexual who fears returning his homeland because he could be arrested for his sexuality. Called Little King, it is based on the story of a 23-year-old Iranian who she met in Los Angeles.
He will be led by his friend and colleague Desray Armstrong, who describes Winstanley as "a wonderful collaborator … extremely passionate and dedicated, driven by kaupapa, intrepid, stubborn, with endless energy, she is also funny and extremely generous. "
When Waititi will return from Prague, Winstanley will end up writing two feature films, a" Poly-Brockovich "- like Erin – story, about a Samoan lawyer based on his cousin; and a feature that she co-writes with kiwi actress Simone Kessell, which she hopes to inspire young women.
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On the other hand, she describes her husband's work as "eccentric". That's part of the reason she does not want to compare her work with hers.
"He's an incredible filmmaker and he has a wonderful sense of humor, his films are irreverent, mine are not like that. I could not make a film like him, it's not from there that I come, and I try to appropriate that … To return to what I like and to this truthful documentary, base my stories on the truth. where is my strength. "
Life in Los Angeles is both domestic and glamorous, Winstanley attends glitzy previews and film festivals alongside Waititi, and went to Matt Damon's home to visit his family. They were hanging out with Chris Hemsworth, but Winstanley shrugged, saying that they were "really very nice, but we like our friends, we have our own whānau there."
During this two-week trip in New Zealand, their daughters, Matewa, 2, and Te Hinekahu, 6, are cared for by her son, 21-year-old Maia, and her parents at Studio City. -sac, with views of hills and trees.
The Waititi-Winstanley tribe moved to Los Angeles in May so that they could once again become a family.Waititi had previously spent a year on the Gold Coast, filming Thor, while Winstanley chose to stay c hez them to Piha.The absence of her husband left a void, but she did not want to uproot their girls from their Maori immersion school and kohanga reo. In Los Angeles, the couple speak té reoo when they can but do not speak fluently.
Winstanley also wanted an adventure. "It's a new experience, I wanted to reinvent myself, I love LA a lot, it's nice and everyone is happy, everyone is interested in what you're doing, the New- Zealand is small and everyone is fighting for the same money. . "
Hiccup at the moment is getting a work visa, Waititi has one, and she is in the US as his wife, but when Waititi returns from Prague at the end of July, she will give the children and it will be his turn to focus on his upcoming films
"He knows it's my time," she says. "He supports me, or else I'll do another interview with you and tell you "It's a motherf *** er"
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"But for women, we have almost the burden, there was a lot of resentment, I will not lie about it, but I can only deal with it if I take care of it. can not wait for him to come to the party if he does not know what's going on for me.
"I have to say how I feel and create my own ways but I do not want it to create these paths so that people say I'm just that because of him. "
Holding her bottle of reusable water, she shrugs. "No one is asking about his family or what I'm doing, but I'm being asked all the time, I bet no one told him," How was it to work with her on Shadows? "
The story of Winstanley's life would make a striking script.With the abuse, her parents separated when she was 7. She first lived with her father at Tauranga, then moved to Auckland to be with her mother.
In her teens, she was suffering from bulimia When she was 14, her mother chased her from Auckland and l & # 39; Dropped to a biodynamic co-operative farm where the manager introduced him to dinner under the name "Chelsea, the Bulimic".
Winstanley became pregnant at age 19 and underwent an abortion. later, she became pregnant with the same man and kept the baby, finding herself alone at the age of 21.
In her twenties, while many of her friends were doing their EOs, Winstanley was a mother Hamilton, then Auckland, she went as far as Sydney with a friend, another lonely mother whom she called "wife there, and they ended up in Queensland for a moment. But it is as far as she has traveled.
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"When Maia was young, we were poor and that was shit most of the time, when I got her young and I ended up on the DPB, I was I was so depressed. "I want to work, I want to provide" There is one thing about pride and the opportunity to earn one's own money: entering these offices is so demoralizing that I've always been independent, and maybe That was "
In Hamilton, where she was studying communications at the University of Waikato, she was returning home from a recycling class one night when her car hit a tree. . One leg was crushed and required the insertion of a titanium rod. It took him six months to walk again.
The accident was a turning point, and she returned to Auckland to be near her mother. She ended up working on television
"I wanted to tell true stories, and documentaries seemed like a way to do it."
At university, Winstanley watched Basata Point's 1980 documentary: Day 507 The film and the style in which it was made were essential. "She was told from the Maori point of view, every time I see her now, I'm still crying."
In her first job with Kiwa Productions, she directed Tame Iti – The Man Behind the Moko. in production. Maia went to live with her grandmother in Tauranga for a year so that Winstanley could work. One day, Mita arrived.
Winstanley shakes his head, remembering the moment. "I had gone through the fax or photocopier, and I turned around, and it was:" What, my idol!
Mita asked Winstanley to work with her on a documentary on child abuse, Saving Grace. In her twenties, Winstanley wanted to learn from Mita. However, Mita suffered a fatal heart attack after a day of work together.
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"We had seen the rough cut and we were standing on the steps on the outside and I said, "Are we going to get food or kai? And I will always remember that Merata said that she wanted to go home and that I went to get the car."
Winstanley continued working on Saving Grace but regretted producing it without Mita by her side, saying it was not her story.
She formed the StanStrong production company with her friend Desray Armstrong and did a number of other documentaries.
Mita's son, Herepi, is the author and director of Merata: How Mum Decolonized the Screen, to give him his full title. is told through his eyes and includes unpublished images.
"It's a bea u film, everything is said in the voice of Merata, it's a beautiful discovery, she was a pioneer, she was the first Maori woman to write and I direct a feature film and there is have not had another since. "
Prior to Merata, Winstanley was working on Waru.Surrounded last year, the film is about abuse.This is a series of chapters, each led by one of the eight Maori women.They are catching up Winstanley is back in New Zealand. "We are called Waruras," she laughs.
Ainsley Gardiner is a comrade "Warura" who also worked with Winstanley on Boy.
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Chelsea Important things to say and she does it boldly and with a sense of humor, says Gardiner. "She is a lion for the things that matter and captures her approach to making her films."
Winstanley love the way women work together, Waru is an example of this collective approach. "We do not have to do it at the old school way, women can be better in numbers … By doing Waru, we shared our ideas and our scenarios with each other, that's what we, women, can bring to this male … "
Winstanley's chapter in Waru, Kiritapu, shows a woman taking back her own power. He was based on two women in his life: Nana Kiritapu Borell and cousin Kiritapu Allan-Coates, the Labor MP. His girlfriend was attached to school for speaking Maori. His cousin is a homosexual Maori MP who is married to a baby
"I wanted my character to have a victory and a search, these are the movies I love, the females getting their ass kicked."
She prefers films directed by women like Lena Wertmuller, the Italian director "badass" of Seven Beauties. The other "Waruras" inspire him. She is also determined to be a role model for her daughters.
In the 125th year since women voted, she looks at the pond and says, "I want to show my daughters, for them to see that they have paths. and for me to be my own boss, I want to work on things that make me happy, I want to show them that they can be in charge
"From my doco past, I like stories based on the real experience, I want women to win, I want females to win, I want to feel good when I leave the theater. "
And with a quote that pretty much sums up his personal life too, Winstanley says : "I do not want women to be an additional background supporting the man."
If you have ever been a victim of sexual assault or abuse and you need to talk to someone, call the confidential helpline: 0800 227 233 (08002B SAFE)
think you or someone else are at risk, dial 111. You can also visit the police website to get information on how to e report a sexual crime.
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