Mia Maramara

INFO

Name	Mia Maramara (she/her)
Country of Birth	Philippines
Place of Residence	Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Ethnicities	Filipino
Artform	Screen
Decades Active	2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

Mia Maramara is a Filipino-born filmmaker whose work has been screened both locally and internationally. Her passion for original and personal stories has led her to wear different hats in the industry, most notably as a writer, director, and producer. In 2021 she co-founded MHM Productions, a genre-oriented production company, with long-time collaborators Hweiling Ow and Morgan Leigh Stewart.

Maramara traces her love of movies to early childhood, watching back-to-back screenings of random movies playing in the cinema. In 2013, Maramara graduated with a BFA in Information Design at Ateneo de Manila University and briefly worked with award-winning producer Bianca Balbuena as a production assistant on Pepe Diokno’s film Above the Clouds. In 2014, Maramara moved to Aotearoa to study film at South Seas Film and Television School, where she received a diploma in screenwriting and directing and got her first job at Sky TV as a digital editor.

Creating work that comes from her own lived experiences, Maramara directed Only Human, a short documentary about going no contact with her “hardline, chauvinistic” father. In an interview with NZ Herald, Kate Goodwin, the show's producer, said:

it [the documentary] would resonate with every young woman who'd had awkward conversations with their dad about why their long-held attitudes aren't okay to talk about any more. I was not only fascinated with Mia and her father's story but I also recognised the importance of feeling okay to ask bigger questions such as 'are you obliged to have family members in your life who have totally opposing views to you?'

In 2022, Maramara earned the distinction of being the first Filipino director to helm an episode of a prime-time drama on New Zealand television with ‘Albularyo’ which proudly features the Tagalog language and a cast of Filipino leads. In that same year, Maramara was named SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year for her work as a director who is “making an impact in reaching broad audiences and creating content that allows the Asian community to see themselves on NZ screens and within NZ contexts”.

In an interview with DEGANZ about how she got started in the industry, Maramara recounts:

Being an immigrant in the film industry is harrowing, especially when you have a less desirable passport, as I did. I’m the only international student from my year who managed to find work and, subsequently, a visa that allowed me to stay. I traded four years of my life for a chance at a resident visa, meanwhile, unable to apply to any local film programs or get paid for any creative work.

Maramara's life motto is “there are no wasted moments”. She worked on music videos and passion projects, volunteering to work on sets whenever she could. It was Maramara's love for the craft that got her through and she found that she could “thrive in the vicious ups and downs of late nights and cheap pizza”. As for her future aspirations, Mia adds, 'I'm working towards a more sustainable feature film career and looking to collaborate with filmmakers abroad or back home.'