![]() The first feature narrative by a Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) filmmaker, Waikiki offers multiple readings and rewards.Ī similar life-on-the-margins setting and a comparably fierce performance from Randall Galius anchors Water Like Fire, which tracks a young woman (Taiana Tully) and her drug-addicted brother (Galius), both after and before two tragic incidents. Part grime-covered, neo-realist exploration of indigenous trauma and houselessness, part eerie surrealist fantasy, the film sets a mood of living nightmare you won’t soon shake. Avoiding the blows of her abusive boyfriend, trying to make ends meet with several jobs-school teacher of Hawaiian language by day, by night a hula dancer for tourists and karaoke hostess for old men-our heroine slowly slips into homelessness and nightmare, her only refuge a dream of family and memories of the earth. Suffice to say its portrait of one Native Hawaiian woman’s long journey into (or out of) night represents a milestone for local filmmaking, with a mesmerizing performance by lead actress Danielle Zalopany. We’ve followed the journey of Kahunahana’s Waikiki in past HIFF recaps (it’s been in the works for at least three years), and we’ll have a separate profile and interview coming up. As always, the shorts program offers an even wider array of themes and range, from animated retellings of scenes from ancient Hawaiian history ( Kapaemahu) to live-action versions of modern struggles ( Hawaiian Soul), along with present-day investigations of homelessness ( Kama’aina: Child of the Land) and mental health ( Red House En Route). Slow-burning, street-level character studies like Christopher Kahunahana’s much-anticipated Waikiki and Mitchel Viernes’ Water Like Fire share the program with Stefan Schaefer’s laid-back comedy, Aloha Surf Hotel, and Jason Lau’s J-Horror-inspired supernatural thriller Story Game, while documentaries focus both on cultural highlights, like Gerard Elmore’s gorgeously shot look at a popular hula competition, Ka Huaka’i: The Journey to Merrie Monarch, and themes that definitely aren’t part of tourist promotions, like Anthony Banua-Simon’s sprawling combination of personal family narrative, Kauai labor history and cinephile labor of love, Cane Fire, or Gary Pak’s heartfelt, talk-story study of the birth of the revolutionary Native Hawaiian land-rights struggle, Huli: Kokua Hawaii and the Beginnings of the Revolutionary Movement in Contemporary Hawai’i. Hawai’i’s own local filmmaking wave continues this year, with a welcome diversity in approaches and aesthetics even within its four feature narrative films. The Hawaiian and Pacific Islander diaspora is everywhere, after all, so if you can’t gather your community together to share culture, then spread that culture to your community far away. Forced online thanks to the pandemic, this year’s quarantine version certainly wasn’t the 40th anniversary blow-out that HIFF had dreamed of, but the festival still found a way to create a virtual version of community, one that had the added appeal of being made available nationwide until Nov. Even if you weren’t particularly part of a community, chances are you’d wind up in one at a screening, learning from both a film and the people around you. The launch pad for Hawaiian filmmakers, a cultural centerpiece for cinematic voices across the Pacific Islands and Polynesia, and a proven showcase for East Asian genre and arthouse cinema, the Hawai’i International Film Festival has always spread its proverbial audience net far and wide, with theaters filled with high-school surfers one moment, and the next elderly Japanese Hawaiian jidai-geki fans, Polynesian third-gender activists, Samoan footballers, university anime lovers, Tongan youth, Okinawan foodies, homeless-rights advocates, Chamorro cinephiles and the usual global cabal of K-drama enthusiasts. ![]() (The city’s closest neighbor with a population over 500k is San Francisco, a mere 2386 miles away). If there’s any film festival that could possibly benefit from this pandemic era’s new virtual normal, consider the one in the most remote major city in the world, Honolulu.
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