Kumu Kahua Theater to host Maoli film festival
HONOLULU—Kumu Kahua Theatre, dedicated to producing works by Hawaii writers and about Hawaii’s culture, joins MAMo (Maoli Arts Month) festivities for the first time with a one-night film festival showcasing five short films by Hawaii directors on Friday, May 6.
“For May’s First Friday, we wanted to do something to honor MAMo and that would fit with their theme and our mission,” says theater board member Mark Kalahele, who organized the event in two weeks in collaboration with Vince Keala Lucero of Co Creative Studios and with support from MAMo and the Hawai‘i film community. “Film is a natural extension of theater, and we’re excited to screen these six strong works. We’re also grateful to the directors and producers who generously lent their films to Kumu Kahua for this fundraiser.”
Six films, including two official Sundance Film Festival selections, will be shown in two screenings. Highlights include Ty Sanga’s Stones, which in January became the first all-Hawaiian language film to screen at Sundance, and Papa Mau, Anthony Na‘alehu’s moving documentary about Micronesian navigator Mau Pialug. Papa Mau sold out at last year’s Hawaii International Film Festival.
Beer and wine will be available for purchase on the theater’s open-air lanai throughout the evening.
Tickets can be reserved in advance by calling the Kumu Kahua Theatre box office at (808) 536-4441, Mondays to Fridays, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE:
Seating 1: 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Chief, directed by Brett Wagner, 20 mins.
A fallen Samoan chief, a tragic death, and a tsunami are part of this visual fever dream of identity in 21st-century Polynesia. An official selection at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Chief also took the HIFF Audience Award that year. For more information, visit www.chief-movie.com.
Piko, directed by Puhipau, 2010, 55 mins.
In 2007, indigenous artists from around the world convened on Hawaii Island for Piko: Gathering of Indigenous Visual Artists. It was the fifth such gathering, and the first time it ever took place in Hawaii. Puhipau captured the creatively rich event on film.
Stones, directed by Ty Sanga, 2010, 20 mins.
Oahu filmmaker Ty Sanga’s Hawaiian-language debut took him to the Sundance Film Festival this year. Fueled by Hawaiian legends, Stones is set in ancient Hawaii. A forlorn woman living in isolation with her husband—members of the Mü, who only come out at night—meets a child and contemplates whether to bring her into a mystical world.
Seating 2: 8:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Blue Tarp City, directed by Henry Mochida, 2009, 14 mins.
Mochida’s hard-hitting documentary looks at the houseless population along the Wai‘anae coast—a portrait of disempowerment and community passion in paradise.
See the trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=astgqQnWibw
Lychee Thieves, directed by Kathleen Man, 2010, 29 mins.
Oahu-born filmmaker Kathleen Man, who is an associate professor of film at Vassar College, explores the humorous, and sometimes contentious, interactions among the culturally and ethnically diverse people of Hawaii in her award-winning short film. Man is also a co-producer for the upcoming film Grassroots, starring Jason Biggs. The cinematography is by another Oahu filmmaker—University of Hawaii assistant professor of film Anne Misawa, who picked up an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Treeless Mountain in 2010.
Papa Mau, directed by Naalehu Anthony, 2010, 57 mins.
Anthony goes back to the beginnings of Höküle‘a in this sprawling documentary about Mau Pialug, the Micronesian navigator who taught Nainoa Thompson everything he knows about forging a nautical path by the stars. Revelations about Höküle‘a’s maiden voyage are riveting and poignant—revealing Pialug as a focused taskmaster. In 2007, Anthony, who himself is a Höküle‘a captain, and his crew filmed the delivery of a double-hulled canoe—a gift from the Polynesian Voyaging Society—to an ailing Pialug in Satawal Atoll. Editor Lisa Altieri skillfully weaves the footage with archival material to tell an important story of sharing, preserving traditions and modern Hawaiian history.
Kumu Kahua productions are made possible with support from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, celebrating more than 30 years of culture and the arts in Hawaii; the National Endowment for the Arts; and The Annenberg Foundation. The event is paid for in part by the taxpayers of the City & County of Honolulu, the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts, and Foundations, Businesses, and Patrons.