Today we’re excited to reveal a new logo, re-brand and bilingual identity by award-winning design agency Inhouse.

The new brand identity has been developed by Auckland agency Inhouse working to a precise brief given by our new director Marten Rabarts, defined in close collaboration with the Festival Board and team, and key Māori advisors.

The new branding and visual language of the festival will reflect the role it plays as a source of light in Aotearoa/New Zealand, while also reflecting the rich diversity of contemporary society as well as the country’s geographic and spiritual place at the centre of the Pacific and the Māori world.

The new Festival identity is defined first by the descriptor Whānau Mārama – Family of Light, which suggests the community which unites every July and August, to share the light to be found in the films, stories and ideas projected on screens across the country.

The new festival logo plays with the duality of light and shadow; both light projected or shadows cast can be seen in the black and white shafts whose slanted angles also depict the W and M of Whānau Mārama.

“Film is light, mārama; captured in a camera then set free on the screen,” Director Marten Rabarts said.

“We know the film festival brings light to New Zealanders in the depths of winter, but Whānau Mārama used lyrically also describes the celestial bodies of the night sky; by these we can navigate, in the same way we use the ideas found in films curated for the festival to chart our way forward.

“Today, more than ever, we feel the urgency of our job as a festival to cast light where needed and to stimulate conversations around what’s revealed there.”