Critics Campus 2026 participant Alia Ardon speaks to Mārama star Ariāna Osborne about how she developed her performance, acting methodologies that have inspired her and the global resonance of Indigenous storytelling.

As a part of the Critics Campus program, I had the pleasure of interviewing and getting to know a little bit more about Ariāna Osborne, the star of Mārama. Hailing from Aotearoa yet premiering at Toronto, Taratoa Stappard’s impressive debut searingly mobilises Gothic horror tropes in service of historical justice and an aesthetic Māori reclamation of Jane Campion’s infamous The Piano (1993).

Osborne’s tīwī are Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi in Whanganui on her dad’s side and Ngāti Mutunga in Taranaki on her mum’s side; her favourite food is watermelon; and she’s an Aries, with a Pisces moon.

I was fascinated that Mārama premiered at TIFF, and was wondering what it was like watching an audience encounter the film for the first time – particularly because it is a piece that asks viewers to sit with confronting imagery and histories of colonialism and dispossession. Was there a particular reaction or silence that stayed with you?

For TIFF, I think the culture of the film festival is quite vocal, so it was really validating to be in that crowd watching the film because it’s so scary to premiere a film, [along with] the impostor syndrome of a small New Zealand Indigenous film [being] at this big festival. I was quite nervous about whether people might even be offended, but they were really vocal – they cheered when Mārama killed both the men – which kind of eased all my fear around whether they would be able to take it, because it is a confronting piece and does not shy away from the horrors of parts of history. I’ve found that lots of people resonated with it because, even though it’s a Māori piece, it’s still an Indigenous piece, and lots of people have faced – or [are] still facing – similarities.

On that note, there’s a growing body of Indigenous horror that uses the genre tropes to confront histories of colonisation and dispossession. For example, on this continent, so-called Australia, we had The Moogai [MIFF 2024] come out a few years ago – which is an Indigenous horror film – and there are many others like it internationally. It reminds me of Māori filmmaker and scholar Barry Barclay, and how he theorised about Fourth Cinema in the late 90s and early 2000s.

I think what drew me to this project particularly is how long-overdue watching a film like this – with that kind of viscerality – felt. I loved the Gothic horror tropes that were used to get audiences to witness history through affect rather than just dry facts in history books, and I think your performance is a huge part of that because it gets audiences to engage viscerally. What did you do to prepare for this role?

At the time that I auditioned for it, I was listening to a podcast called [In The Envelope:] The Actor’s Podcast, [where] Lily Gladstone was talking about a theatre exercise that she uses in workshops from this guy whose methodology is called the Theatre of the Oppressed. I think I was inspired by that idea of using words to trigger something within me; I played with a lot of words and improvised or physically explored what came about impulsively, or what reaction [they] got from me. I ended up with four words, and those words were seer, colonised, often and ancestors. These all did something different for me somewhere, like a physical response.

I also did lots of research about that time and then a lot of dreaming – like, daydreaming scenarios or moments in [Mārama’s] life that I felt gave reason to why she was the way that she was – and then journalled all of that stuff. I watched a lot of films. I watched Lady Macbeth [2016] and The Wanderer. I also watched many films that Taratoa sent me – he was interested in all the stillness in both those films.

It’s interesting what you’re saying about stillness, because one of the questions I was going to ask you was about the physicality of your performance. I feel that your performance in that stillness is struggling with the weight of generations and memory within Mārama’s body. I was wondering if that was something you consciously thought about while you were performing.

Yes, that’s a great question. I think two things contributed to that: one of them [was] that I did breathwork with a coach here in New Zealand, Sophie Hamilton; I think that definitely influenced the performance and physicality. The other thing we did was that, [through] the whole film, [Mārama] was holding this giant amount of rage, because we knew that we would have to get to the haka, and we wanted to build to that. It’s a period piece, so then we considered the social constraints and her position as a woman, and also [as] a Māori woman in that part of the world where she … has no choice but to suppress all that stuff.

Mārama

I wanted to talk about that party scene. It has this bloodcurdling quality to it; the social atmosphere just becomes so grotesque and disgusting until the moment of eruption, where she literally breaks and performs an incredibly moving haka. How did you approach the haka scene as an actor?

I think that I definitely approached it sincerely. The process was kind of scary, because I had only done the prep before shooting, and it was quite tight – as it often is in New Zealand, because the budget is so low. I had only gotten a chance to do a one-hour session learning the haka, and then I just had to rewatch the video and try and learn it myself. I was so nervous. I’d also done a Zoom chat with our Māori adviser to make sure that I knew what I was saying.

We shot the whole party scene in order over two days, and everyone was really excited about that scene. The haka was the last thing to happen – we only shot it twice, and we only did that one angle. That was my saving grace, because I just got to be in the moment and feel the progression of that party scene, which, as you watch, is so disturbing. And so, naturally, I just got to sit [within] her in that build-up and rage for those two days. So, when it got to the haka, I was just ready to do it.

You can feel it – it was an incredibly powerful moment. It was especially smartly placed in the film because it felt like the haka was in a moment that was culturally and emotionally appropriate.

Yes, totally.

To finish off, I was really interested in the idea of lineage – especially in the context of this film contributing to a lineage of Indigenous films from Aotearoa, but also as a big moment in your evolving and growing career. Who have you felt held by on this journey?

There’s this thing in Māori culture – we have tuākana and tēina. Tuākana are your elders and the tēina are the babies, and the job of the tuākana is to take care of the tēina. I feel in this industry that I’ve been taken care of by lots of tuākana: for instance, Nicola Kāwana and Keisha Castle-Hughes. I’ve worked with both of them now, and they have just really taken care of me on set and backed me in my career. I feel like I’m getting older and have a little bit of experience now, and I would like to continue that lineage: eventually, I’ll contribute in [the] position of tuākana and take care of other people who are emerging onto our screens.

Mārama screened as part of the MIFF 2026 program.

The above has been written as part of MIFF’s Critics Campus program. The opinion expressed is the author’s and does not necessarily reflect that of the festival.