| Alum | Berlin 2020 • Berlin 2014 • Short Form Station 2014 |
| Country | New Zealand |
Hiona’s films carry a host of awards including the Audience Choice Award and Best Actress Award at the 2010 Wairoa Māori Film Festival. She has received the NZFC Huia Publishers Pikihuia Highly Commended Script Award; the Southseas NZ student film award for Best Film Production and the Australian Solid screen award for Contribution to Screen Arts. In 2019 Hiona received the Best International Indigenous Documentary Award at the Wairoa Māori Film Festival. Hiona’s new documentary Ruahine: Stories In Her Skin premiered at the 2019 Asinabka Film, Media & Arts Festival in Ottawa and will also screen at FIFO Tahiti in 2020. Hiona represented Māori filmmakers at Berlinale Talents in 2014 and the international Interdoc Documentary Masterclass in Serbia in 2016. She was a participant of the 2018 DEGNZ Women director's incubator. And in February Hiona will return to Berlinale Talents 2020 as an Alumni filmmaker. She is currently in script development for her first dramatic feature length film "Kurahaupō" (Halo Around The Moon), based on the story of Tahitian navigator, Whatonga, and his wife Hotuwaipara.
