“Hawaiʻi International Film Festival is our fertile soil, a moment to gather and grow,” sounds the theater’s speakers, “as we seek our secondary succession.” This gentle voice, belonging to Kawika Asuncion, the artist behind this year’s key visual, refers to the 42nd Annual Hawaiʻi International Film Festival’s theme: Secondary Succession — rebirth after devastation. As the lava of Kīlauea ravages the land, life lays buried deep, ready to persevere. The Made in Hawaiʻi shorts program is a tribute to the Hawaiians’ second coming, and the resilience of art and hope.
On the Saturday night of this year’s festival, I sat amongst a comfortable crowd in the Hilo Palace Theater. The November 19, 2022 itinerary included an 8pm showing of HIFF’s Made in Hawaiʻi Shorts Program 1, the first half of a two-night event. Camera and notebook in hand, I waited, knowing nothing more than the names of the films and their directors. I intended to view and interpret the films with fresh eyes.
Hawai’i International Film Festival highlighted a colorful variety of local voices focused on telling stories relevant close to home and around the world. The shorts were a breadth of heartwarming letters to loved ones and social commentaries: A Hui Hou (dir. Kainoa Presbitero), A Tale of Two Sisters (dir. Angelique Axelrode), Bury It (dir. Andrew Williamson), KRONOS (dir. Ara Laylo), Lahi (dir. Reina Gabriela Bonta), Poʻele Wai (dir. Tiare Ribeaux), Racket (dir. Zoe Eisenberg), and The Last Rodeo (dir. Liz Barney, Alison Week).
A Hui Hou (Until We Meet Again)
Directed by: Kainoa Presbitero
Set in Kāneʻohe, A Hui Hou opens with a myth familiar to many Hawaiʻi households: “If a moth comes to your house that sticks around, that’s family.” As Joyce Hisako Oda’s health begins to fail her, she recounts her life, particularly her marriage to her one true love, Stanley. She lost him to cancer when she was only 28, and he was 31. She struggles to leave the home they shared together.
A Hui Hou’s visuals are vibrant as Joyce reminisces about Stanley, but the quiet shake of her voice, of a woman wizened with age, implies the sad story to come, as the scrapbook-inspired visuals invoke a feeling of nostalgia. Joyce’s story reminded me of my own family’s matriarchs, and how they have spent many years without their husbands. In the wake of my own grandmother’s passing, I sympathize with her, as she clings to what she has left of her late husband.
A Tale of Two Sisters
Directed by: Angelique Axelrode
A Tale of Two Sisters is inspired by the story of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, blending narrative, mythos, and dance to capture the tale of two sisters overcoming conflict. Created by the Axelrode sisters, it is a story true to their own relationship, as much as it is to Hiʻiaka and Pele.
Though the story is told through the interpretive medium of dance, the creators’ intentions are irrefutable. As the sisters dance around one another, they share moments of tension and intimacy, such as sharing hā. As the images flashed across the screen, rhythmic music from the speakers thrumming in my chest, my pen scribbled, “This is the heart of poetry in the vessel of body language.” As the dance recounts the tale of Hiʻiaka and Pele, it is sandwiched by scenes depicting the sisters driving to the beach to surf, illustrating the inevitable conflict and friendship that follows between siblings.
Bury It
Directed by: Andrew Williamson
In rural Hawaiʻi, two young boys are left in the forest of Kaʻu to dispose of their family’s secret. As the boys venture through the trees, a bag carrying unknown contents, they ponder fantasies of running away and living in the wilds before they are met with a brief but eye-opening encounter with nature itself. Finally, they find a place to bury the secret, as the brothers are forced to accept a grim reality at a young age. The film is inspired by a true story, recounted with permission.
*Spoiler alert* As the boys are fantasizing about impossible fantasies, they are awoken by the cruel realities of the world. Their encounter with nature, just as they debate how they could run away and live in the trees, is quickly disillusioned by a mother pig charging them from her place in the bushes. Then, as they look upon the secret out of curiosity, they are shown a painful truth in the form of an unbeating heart.
KRONOS
Directed by: Ara Laylo
A young man, Daniel, wakes in an empty house. He is visited by visions, by people, by a voice, as he unravels images of trauma. As an introductory taste of Hawaiian science fiction, I found Kronos to be more profound without knowing too much, and so I summarize it in abstract so as to not give too much of its plot away.
KRONOS was the oddity of the Made in Hawaiʻi Shorts Program 1 — the black sheep. Not in a bad way, but distinctly the opposite. The sharp, frantic cuts and use of Hawaiʻi’s landscape as an alien, deceptively serene backdrop left me feeling foreign in my own body until its conclusion, when the story comes into sharp clarity for both the watcher and the main character.
Lahi
Directed by: Reina Gabriela Bonta
Lahi, the Tagalog word for race and legacy, follows the tale of a young Filipina woman named Mimi on the brink of a cultural breakthrough. Following her grandmother’s funeral, she is reintroduced to her lola’s life and culture as she (reluctantly) takes a family heirloom to its rightful place.
Lahi is an intimate, deeply personal film to the director. Mimi, the main character, is disconnected from her culture and past, due partly to a disgruntled relationship with her late lola, which reads as a deep resentment or embarrassment regarding being Filipino. She is taken on a journey that is both literal and metaphorical to reconnect with her grandmother’s story by her elders. As she begins to re-embrace her Filipino heritage, she enters the ocean as a cultural baptism and rebirth. The story will resonate with anyone who has once lost their connection to their heritage.
Pōʻele Wai
Directed by: Tiare Ribeaux
In Pōʻele Wai, Kunawai is a weaver who is navigating their relationship with the land and their need for survival. The waters of Oʻahu are poisoned, and a mysterious rash on their body worsens. A painting connected to a Hawaiian creation story sends Kunawai into a transformative journey in this horror short set to a cultural backdrop.
Oʻahu: the world is filled with white noise. Pōʻele Wai is a commentary on the Red Hill (Kapūkakī) crisis but does not shy away from other issues Kānaka continue to face, including overdevelopment. Modern society, the buildings and the occupiers, are the white noise, drowning out the land. These were once sacred places, and our disconnect from where we came from is making us sick. Pōʻele Wai calls on Kunawai and the watcher to remember where they came from.
Racket
Directed by: Zoe Eisenberg
When a circus clown, Lo, impulsively ends her relationship with her performing partner just moments before going on stage, she is forced to improvise a one-woman act. Shedding the dark, monochromatic makeup, she dons colorful hues of pink and wows the packed theater by twisting and contorting herself through and around a tennis racket.
As Racket projected onto the big screen, viewers were greeted with the familiar walls of the Hilo Palace Theater. Despite the grim introduction which implies an abusive relationship, Racket is vibrant and almost silly by its conclusion. In the post-show Q&A, Zoe Eisenberg commented that she had been inspired to write Racket when she “overheard two clowns breaking up before a show.” Racket successfully pursues a female-driven narrative, with subtle but colorful queer undertones.
The Last Rodeo
Directed by: Liz Barney & Alison Week
Set on the slopes of Mauna Kea and Kohala, this documentary follows the Bertelmann family, including the then 17-year-old daughter, Laʻi considering if she should consider college in the Mainland. The Bertellman and Keakealani families are championing keeping the paniolo culture alive and serve as stewards of the land, but are locked into a month-to-month lease at risk of expiration. A larger project is in production incorporating the story of another wahine paniolo on the opposite side of the island.
The Last Rodeo is an intimate look at the Bertelmann-Keakealani families, as well as encapsulates how important the connection between Kānaka and the ʻāina is. Additionally, it shines a spotlight on the wāhine in ranching by highlighting a family with many powerful female voices.
Be sure to check out our review of the 2022 Hawai’i International Film Festival winner for the award Best Made in Hawaiʻi Film: The Wind & the Reckoning!
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