Hawaii International Film Festival
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Hawai’i International Film Festival 2024: Zoë Eisenberg on Chaperone
A chance encounter with a teenage Lothario who thought she was still in high school inspired Zoë Eisenberg to begin writing her solo directorial debut, Chaperone, which premiered at the 2024 Slamdance Film Festival and won the Breakouts Grand Jury Prize. “When I was 29, a 17-year-old boy mistook me for a teenager and asked me out to a party,” Eisenberg recalls. “While I declined, I couldn’t help but wonder: what kind of woman would have gone to that party? From there, the questions grew. What happens when a woman chooses not to pursue career or motherhood, the two narrow […]
by Jason Sanders on Nov 8, 2024 -
Hawai’i International Film Festival 2024: Gerard Elmore and Mitchel Merrick on Kūkini
A historical action-epic set in a 1790’s Hawai’i rift of inter-island warfare, Gerard Elmore and Mitchel Merrick’s 26-minute short Kūkini boasts kinetic chase scenes and battle sequences combined with a rigorous attention to cultural accuracy and practice: In addition to consulting with Native Hawaiian practitioners and historians, Elmore and Merrick filmed it entirely in ʻŌlelo Hawai’i, the indigenous language of Hawai’i. In addition to being a director, producer, editor and cinematographer, Elmore is one of the creators and leads of the ‘Ohina Film Labs and Showcase, one of the biggest forces giving opportunities to filmmakers in Hawai’i (a 2023 count […]
by Jason Sanders on Nov 8, 2024 -
Hawai’i International Film Festival 2024: Alika Tengan on Molokai’i Bound
I first learned of Alika Tengan (then Alika Maikau) when his short Mauka to Makai (co-directed with Jonah Okano) screened at the 2018 Hawai’i International Film Festival, where I was a member of the Made in Hawai’i jury. The film’s naturalism, commitment to its characters and refusal of easy melodrama demonstrated a maturity far beyond the young filmmaker’s age; our jury gave it the Best Film award. It turned out to be just the first of several Made in Hawai’i Best Film awards for Tengan; he also won for his 2019 short Molokai’i Bound, and this year won it again […]
by Jason Sanders on Nov 8, 2024 -
Stories Shared, Stories Known: the 2023 Hawai’i International Film Festival Presented by Halekulani
Like many film events this past summer and fall, this year’s Hawai’i International Film Festival found cinema in a bit of an uneasy holding pattern, what with the Hollywood strikes, the after-effects of pandemic production delays, a rising fear of an A.I.-dominated future, and a growing dissatisfaction with commercial cinema’s superhero-centric fixations. But rather than the paranoia and uncertainty that dominated mainland festivals, Hawai’i seemed invigorated by what was rising up in its place. News that much-anticipated titles like Alika Tengan’s feature Molokai’i Bound, Mitchel Merrick’s Native Hawaiian martial-arts actioneer Kūkini, and Zoë Eisenberg’s debut Chaperone had neared completion gave […]
by Jason Sanders on Dec 21, 2023 -
Awakening: Hawai’i International Film Festival 2022
Over the past decade or so, the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival presented by Halekulani—like any good organization—has been in a state of evolution. Ten to 15 years ago, under the then-leadership of executive director Chuck Boller, it was considered one of the best American festivals to celebrate and discover East Asian populist cinema, with guests lists of Hong Kong icons, Japanese auteurs and Korean superstars that put most other festivals to shame. In the 2010s, it shined through its programming of independent Asian American cinema, providing a platform for voices and visions typically shut out of mainstream media. In recent […]
by Jason Sanders on Jan 13, 2023 -
Rivers and Eyes: The 41st Hawai’i International Film Festival
An indigenous filmmaking focus and the ever-blossoming local film scene helped the 41st edition of the Hawai’i International Film Festival Presented by Halekulani return to an almost-normal state of in-person bliss this November. After a year and more of pandemic uncertainties and isolation, attendees shook off the social rust with varying degrees of success, while fears about being amidst crowds were somewhat abated by Honolulu’s vigorous vaccine requirements and HIFF’s strict 50%-capacity limits. The festival fittingly opened with the world premiere of Isaac Halasima’s documentary Waterman, on the astounding life of Native Hawaiian surfer/Olympian/celebrity Duke Kahanamoku; hit its stride with […]
by Jason Sanders on Dec 22, 2021 -
“It is Being Told Now—Because It is Supposed to Be Told Now”: Christopher Kahunahana on Waikiki and Native Hawaiian Storytelling
With Waikiki opening in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023 (official site here), we’re reposting Jason Sanders’s 2020 interview with Christopher Kahunahana. A film with “a seventeen-day shoot and two+ years of post-production,” Christopher Kahunahana’s long-awaited feature debut Waikiki marks a coming of age for the emerging Hawaiian filmmaking scene. The first completed narrative feature film by a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) filmmaker, Waikiki follows a young indigenous woman, Kea (a mesmerizing Danielle Zalopany), working multiple jobs—hula dancer for tourists, karaoke hostess for drunks, Hawaiian-language schoolteacher for kids—just in order to hold on, but slowly starting to […]
by Jason Sanders on Nov 25, 2020 -
Hawai’i International Film Festival 2020: Gathering Community
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. (The city’s closest neighbor with a population over 500k is San Francisco, a mere 2386 miles away). 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 […]
by Jason Sanders on Nov 24, 2020 -
To the Mauna: the 39th Hawai’i International Film Festival
Attendees of this year’s Hawai’i International Film Festival enjoyed the organization’s usual blend of contemporary world cinema, Hollywood Oscar bait, gala celebrations and various other initiatives, but it was events off the screen—and the festival’s response to them—that made 2019 a year to remember for many. The re-emergence of a powerful indigenous cultural movement, fueled by the fight against the proposed Thirty Mile Telescope on the Big Island’s Mauna Kea mountain and similar native land-rights issues on Oahu (HIFF’s home base), was the talk of the community when the festival took place in November and lent a different kind of […]
by Jason Sanders on Feb 7, 2020 -
“Those Two Characters are There, Forever Young”: Wong Kar-wai on Chungking Express
The night before my interview with him, Wong Kar-wai addressed a sold-out crowd assembled for a screening of one of his greatest films, 1994’s Chungking Express. Hawaii International Film Festival’s longtime director of programming, Anderson Le, affably overcame some introductory ribbing by Wong (“Anderson, why do you ask me that question! It was 25 years ago, and after 25 years, it’s still that same question!” he jokingly responded to the first, somewhat innocuous query), and coaxed out some remarkable storytelling and reminiscences from the director. “Every film [has] their luck,” Wong began. “Certain films, the process is really difficult: the […]
by Jason Sanders on May 7, 2019
