Reel Wāhine of Hawaiʻi 5 Web Transcript (music) Pākē Salmon: My whole thing, as a filmmaker, is to document  and capture this moment in time.

Tiare Ribeaux: We’re able to bring a contemporary lens about what  is happening to our island today.

Robin Lung: I’m really drawn to the stories of strong women.

Alison Week: So let’s see who of the women in our community  are doing some amazing stuff.

Lola Quan Bautista: My films were driven by something that’s happened in the  community and it called for filmmaking.

Shirley Thompson: Absorbing that director’s vision and know what they’re trying to say but  then also understanding what the audience sees.

Alison Week: To realize that vision and make it better if we can.

Robin Lung: Somehow, a story finds me.

It’s using me as a filmmaker, as a vehicle  to get told to the world in a new way perhaps.

Tiare Ribeaux: I want to push beyond the boundaries of kind of the  normal story, to bring in the magic.

Pākē Salmon: Seems like I’ve always had a camera in my hand.

To teach the next generation that this  is how we lived for thousands of years is special.

Scene from film: Not fair.

Alison Week: Personally, I feel really excited about the future of  filmmaking.

This is just the start.

(music) Pākē Salmon: You know, I'm in an environment that's moving, grooving, all  over.

And I gotta, like, be stable, and then I can just take my camera and frame up, and capture  the athletes doing what they do and trying to be beautiful about it.

And getting the imagery.

I think what's attractive to me about the camera when I was young, it was like, it's a hard piece  of equipment.

It's like being a mechanic.

So you got to fit things together and it makes the  lengths clicks.

And then chick, chick chick, I don't know.

That's what I loved about it.

When I was in the 10th grade at Nānākuli High School, I took photography.

And then that's when I actually got to really have a camera take it home.

But it wasn't until, like,  I was maybe 21 or 22 that I had a real camera.

And then I had also the Minolta, the yellow one  that was waterproof.

I was already surfing, so I would take that and I would go and take  pictures of the professional man from Mākaha.

Then I have my sister's video camera, so it  seems like I've always had a camera in my hand.

My mom was one of the first storytellers  who would tell us about the Hawaiians traveling on the ocean by the stars, and how  powerful, beautiful and intelligent we were.

My mom made it a point.

And like being out here  too, with all the Hawaiians, that we were kind of outcasts from town and everything else, you  know, we were outcasts except within this moku.

So she just wanted to impress upon us our great  indigeneity and who we are as the kānaka maoli.

One of my passions is like documenting Uncle  Buffalo's contest.

I was there since I was a little girl.

One of the most important things  for me to document is the ceremonies every year, because one day Uncle Buff is not  going be here.

And it's like how we look at Duke Kahanamoku and what was.

I  get an opportunity to document that today.

His contest, his life, being with him.

You  know, he was the steersman on the maiden voyage of Hōkūle'a.

He was looking at Papa  Mau on a night like this, under the stars, under the full moon.

And Papa Mau, that master  navigator was talking to Uncle Buff and teaching him.

And like, just to hear these stories from  his lips and his experience and all of that.

It's, I don't know, I live  for that.

So important to me.

My whole thing as a filmmaker is to  document and capture this moment in time, the time that I'm living in,  to document the families who continue to perpetuate our traditional  sports of surfing, canoeing, voyaging.

(music) (Chanting) I like to be in the thick of the cultural  movements.

Like Mauna Kea.

Or like when there's, certain things going on in the community.

I  like to be there, so I'm hungry for stories that I've been told and about the people  that I experience in my life, and that they're great people, but their stories never  get told.

And so that is what I'm fixated on.

This is the last stronghold where the Hawaiians  got pushed out to.

So for us to still be here as one united under like aloha ʻāina is beautiful.

And also knowing that gentrification is here.

I was almost priced out of paradise, almost, and  then also priced out of Waiʻanae, Mākaha.

This is the last place that was affordable for us.

And so last year I had to move out of my house.

I got an eviction notice and that was really  scary.

The statistics are that there's more of us living in the United States than there  are living here in our own country.

You know, this is Hawaiʻi.

What is Hawaiʻi without  Hawaiians?

And so that was really scary for me.

And like who I am in this community, my  family, everything I am is here in this moku.

Because of getting evicted, it stopped all  creativity for me.

And like, I couldn't concentrate.

And it's just like the first time  in 28 years that I could not concentrate.

And I was restless in myself because, like, I had a big  hole in my stomach when I was sleeping and when, like I woke up.

So it was hard to concentrate.

But I thought of my filmmaking project here at this beach, the special place.

So right now I'm in  a place of healing, and I'm getting back to being creative and having that flow and that inspiration  come back onto me.

This ʻāina and this place has its own story, and it's thousands of years  old.

So that that kind of just drives me in my journey as a filmmaker, to make sure  that our ways our moʻolelo don't get erased.

Our way of life.

My grandparents, my blood is  in this beach in all these lands.

So no matter what happens to us, we always got to come back and  we got to do our oli.

We got to do our songs.

We got to do our dances, we got to touch this and we  got to worship.

Our deities, the land, the ocean.

So that the spirit also can, like the spirit of  Hawaiʻi, can thrive and still live on.

It's my mission to teach the next generation that this is  how we lived for thousands of years is special.

Yeah, I'm inspired.

I'm here.

I'm very grateful  to be here.

Every day.

I see life through a different lens.

Now.

And, I'm just all about the  legacy that I'm going to leave for the children, which is my archives, and also inspiring them  to live their dreams in whatever dreams they want to have, just to push them and tell them how  beautiful they are and how they can do it, and how they can't stop fighting for one aloha ʻāina and  these lands, all of us.

And just to keep dreaming.

(music) Alison Week: (Let me check.

Frame.)

I've been camera utility on commercials.

I have been PAs on set.

I've  been ADs.

I have been line producer, you know, production manager, director, writer.

I've done sound, camera, lighting team, stunt grip.

I did a car commercial  where I was thrown into doing car rigging.

It's been my film school is to  say yes to anything that comes my way.

Scene from Chaperone: Do you ever think about what you're going  to be like when you're a grown up?

Alison Week: One of our investors was like, I have a room at Sundance, and if you guys have  never been, I'd like to offer you the room if you can get yourselves here to experience Sundance for  the first time.

Steven and I hopped on a plane, like, literally packed up camera gear.

Hadn't slept, got on planes, and we're in Park City (Utah) and we're just looking  at ourselves.

I don't know how we're going to do this, but let's figure out how we can get  here someday.

Literally, exactly one year later, we’re in Park City having an award ceremony.

Chaperone is a narrative feature film that was shot in Hilo, Hawaiʻi.

Scene from Chaperone: I’ll race you.

No.

Why not?

Just just from here to the lot.

No way.

You'll win.

Yeah.

Probably one.

Well, no no no, this is.

Not fair.

You're  like a foot taller than me.

Alison Week: There are creative producers who are thinking about the story and the packaging  and how to, like, pull together all the pieces, which very much so worked closely with Zoe and all  that, from casting to crewing.

There's like the line producer, you know, in charge of budget and,  you know, financing and, you know, making sure everybody gets paid and all the vendor paperwork  is there.

And I very much did all of that as well.

And then there's the UPM, right.

The unit  production manager who is also coordinating with your camera teams, all of the gear lists, all  the gear needs to like working with the caterer on the menus and also thinking about safety.

Normally those are different roles, there's different people for each of those roles, but for  something like Chaperone that we shot here, that that was what we did.

That was I did everything,  I did all the things, but I didn't do it alone.

I also had another producer, Devin, so I  don't feel like I can speak to Chaperone without also mentioning all the hard work  on his part to support along the way.

When you have to shoot on such a little budget, we  just couldn't afford to shoot for very long.

You only get 12 or 13 days.

That's  it.

When I share that, yeah, we had 17 locations that we shot in 13 days,  people are like, are you insane?

And I'm like, yes.

And I love our crew and our cast who held  that up.

I think that's the thing I like about producing is it's about helping other people to  realize that vision and make it better if we can.

(music) Alison Week: This is my high school shout out to Kealakehe High School.

Where I actually graduated  a year early.

One of my best friend's sisters, she had done like this study abroad thing.

My  best friend and I were like, we're going to do that.

We're going to graduate early.

We're going  to spend our senior year abroad.

Let's go learn a language, let's travel.

Let's see the world.

And so we did that.

She went to Japan and I went to Belgium, where I learned French.

I really  had this bug to get off the island.

You know, it's funny.

It's almost funny to me that, like,  I'm back and, like, I don't want to leave, but sometimes it takes, like, literally going  to the opposite end of the world and realizing, like, like where where home  is for you actually, you know.

(music) Alison and cameraman speaking  while filming a scene: And then we're good.

I think just kind  of a good on that.

But I think a little less headroom there for a lower or  you like lower.

Lower would be good.

Alison Week: I think understanding your values and understanding who you are  and why you want to do something is really important.

And I've recognized for myself for  a while that community is really important.

Alison speaking with cameraman: Can you get a shot from that side or see how they're using the stones to help Mark?

Alison Week: And community partnerships, community collaborations and working  within community is really important to me.

On set discussion: What is, what are some of the feelings that you get or the observations?

Alison Week: And so I think that that shows up in the work that I do in a way, and the people  that I choose to work with.

We’re here in Waimea, the paniolo culture is just so rich, but  you never hear about the women.

So both of us we’re like, let's see who of the women in  our community are doing some amazing stuff.

Horse rider speaking: In my head everything goes quiet.

That's when I'll nod that's when I'll go.

Alison Week: That led us to, like, meeting our  first protagonists the Keakealani's, and going out to their ranch up on Pu'uanahulu.

One of the first questions we asked was, what's a story that you think should be  told?

Like, what's the story that you haven't heard?

And that's been a really important  question for us as we connect with the community.

Scene from film: And when people of place are absent, I believe there is a suffering.

There's  a suffering of the kanaka, the people.

Alison Week: And we also got connected to Lani over at Kapāpala Ranch on the south side of  the island.

And it's a very different landscape, very different environments.

But that  question of what's a story that would be important for you to share right now?

And  for both of them, it's that question of, are we going to stay or are we going to go?

What's  happening with the land that they're stewarding?

Scene from film: Long term investments need long term tenure.

Alison Week: Knowing that our story helped share her perspective and share her  ranch with the people that needed to see that, it's a reminder that stories are important.

There's nothing better than knowing that your story can help change some hearts and minds, and  hopefully impact our community for the better.

Liz and I worked on Island Cowgirls for like three  years, you know, fairly intensely this labor of love.

You do it because you're passionate about  the story that's being told.

But there's also the emotional impacts of that, too.

When  you're finally done working on the work, you're like, okay, what next?

It's very easy just  to have these like moments of like depression.

And so part of that is like trying to find  that balance, trying to find that other way of managing the physical, the emotional toll  that it can take on you and finding ways of staying grounded.

For me, I've got really  a great relationship with my family.

My sister and I are super close and my mom is so  supportive.

My step mom, my uncle.

I just have all these people around me now that I didn't when  I was living on the continent or living abroad.

Personally, I feel really excited about  the future of filmmaking, both here in Hawaiʻi island, with both the work that I'm  interested in doing.

This is just to start.

(music) Lola Quan Bautista: So it has to be based on your capstone question in terms of empathy,  networking, nurturing, and role modeling role modeling.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's good.

Thank you.

Okay.

My name is Lola Quan Bautista.

I'd say at the center of it.

I am a daughter and a  sister and a promise sister.

An aunt and a godmother.

And a wife, of course.

And beyond that, I am an educator, filmmaker, community advocate.

So that's sort of my larger role.

(music) I didn't really grow up in the kitchen.

I grew up outside of the kitchen.

So I was born and raised on Guam.

And, my mom  really emphasized higher education.

So college brought me to Washington State.

I'm  not sure I wanted to be an educator first, or I had some things that I wanted  to know more about.

So when I left, when I graduated in high school in '86,  there is lots of changes going on in Guam.

There were many other Pacific  Islanders who were coming to Guam, and these were folks that were coming mostly  from the Federated States of Micronesia.

Many times are men, unmarried men looking for  jobs so they came and they worked on the farm that we lived on.

And so, of course, my father  hired them.

So working side by side, you know, getting to know them, trying to figure out  how is it that we know so little about them, sort of sparked my interest.

That's the  thing that I wanted to study when I left.

So in 2006, I was doing some research  in the Northern area of Guam, working with a community that  was mostly from the Federated States of Micronesia.

And in one of their  nightly meetings, they had invited me, and it was sort of a formal request to film their  struggle.

So that's how I came to filmmaking.

Sound from film: We wanted justice.

We want justice.

Early in 2006, the Guam Environmental  Protection Agency had learned about these growing subdivisions, and they served  them with a notice of violation because they weren't properly hooked up to a sewer line,  and they were threatened with evictions.

I felt the weight of it.

They know how  they're being depicted on the news, in the newspaper.

It's pretty horrible.

There was  a lot of tensions between Indigenous people of Guam and these other Pacific Islanders.

You know,  these were groups who prior to that struggle.

They didn't interact with each other.

They didn't  know about each other's backgrounds as well.

In order for these folks to make it in places  like Guam and Hawaiʻi, there needs to be better relations with the Indigenous people.

I'm really  hoping for there to be, be more opportunities for people to interact.

And of course, where  collectively this this group will be uplifted.

Initially, the idea to hold a food fair came  from one of the residents, Kini Sananap.

Kini Sananap: They wanted everybody to see us.

How we struggle here.

I wanted to come and, see us so  we can exchange our, understanding of each other.

Lola Quan Bautista: Personally, I feel really proud about Breadfruit in Open Spaces because I think, I think it really  captures you know, the spirit of the community, the way that people came together and they  were arm in arms trying to, you know, move the community forward and fight for their rights.

So I just think it's it's such a it's just is such a rich story.

It just it brings me a lot of joy  that I get to, depict these folks in a really, you know, in a really positive way.That brings  me a lot of joy.

Yeah, I'd say that all of my films were driven by something that's happened  in the community, and it called forth filmmaking.

(People singing) Lola Quan Bautista: My latest film, Promesa is, is a little bit is a lot, a bit different than  the films that I have done thus far.

Because the shift now is on CHamoru people.

[people singing]  This one is focused on four prayer leaders and the promises that they make to continue on with  this novena practice or this nobenas practice.

Reciting the sign of the  cross in a different language: My mom has always been the one to teach me more  about, you know, what it is to be a CHamoru, and of course the CHamoru language.

She sort  of ushered me into learning about the novena.

February 2020, my mother-in-law, who lived  here in Oʻahu.

She passed away.

I took it upon myself to gather her relatives  online, on zoom to do the lisåyu the prayers.

And after we were done mourning her  death, the ladies that we're meeting online, they continue to come.

And that's what  prompted me to do that Promesa film.

Scene from film, speaking in CHamoru language: Lola Quan Bautista: I'm beginning to feel the  joy with the joy of seeing the impact that the films can make.

Yeah, especially in the classroom.

I think I’m going on now, 15 years.

If someone had asked me, you know, much earlier, you know, would you take on  something like this, I, I would have said, no, there's no way I was going to take on anything  more.

Yeah.

But I it's it's just there's, there's been so many people who have helped  me that, you know, you you can't say no.

(music) Shirley Thompson: That the editors really done their job.

It's invisible.

You don't notice the  editing or see the editing.

An editor gathers all the pieces that make a film.

So in a documentary,  it's footage that's been shot.

It's music.

It's the sounds of the environment.

It may be still  photos, it may be artwork.

And then piece by piece by piece we weave those together into  what becomes the best version of that story.

(music) My name is Shirley Thompson.

I call myself a  veteran filmmaker because that sounds better than I have been doing this so long, and I'm  mostly known for the documentaries that I edit that end up on public television.

I am based here  in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, but New Orleans is home.

New Orleans music scene: Oh, baby, baby, baby, can we  go strolling.

We go strolling… Shirley Thompson: I do not go home for the Christmas  holidays.

I go home to New Orleans during Mardi Gras because Mardi  Gras is the best day of the year.

New Orelans music scene: Hey ay yo.

Hey yo… Shirley Thompson: We let go of our personality and take on an alter ego.

News Orleans music scene: Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Shirley Thompson: It's a big cultural melting pot of people from all over the world.

My parents were both immigrants and came from other countries, and they met in New Orleans  and stayed.

Growing up a Spanish speaker and growing up in a Latin household that  has had a huge influence.

I was always a writer from the time I was eight years  old, I. I told people I was going to be a journalist.

I started in journalism in college.

It was the 80s, it was the Reagan era.

There was a huge backlash against feminism, and women  were basically being told, okay, you had your fun now get back in the kitchen and go back  to having babies.

The first three jobs I got, I only got them because I was an affirmative  action hire.

You know, I remember asking, you know, I'd like to be considered for this  position and have my boss look at me and say, you know, I honestly never even considered you.

I had to be better.

I didn't have any.

I could not fail because if I failed.

Not only would they be  right, which was unacceptable, but it would also mess it up for any other woman who was coming  up behind me.

I just never got anybody, shining back to me.

Yes.

You could be great at this.

It  had to come from inside.

I just had to love it.

I wanted to edit feature documentaries.

Nobody was going to hire me to edit a feature documentary.

I'd never edited one before.

So I went and made a feature documentary.

Scenes from film Young Aspirations, Young Artists: Young Aspiration.

Young this year.

Me and the kids.

It's an experience.

It's the  chance of a lifetime.

We're young, we're black.

But we're making a difference.

Making a change.

A place to express.

Shirley Thompson: Young Aspirations.

Young artists.

That was my first film.

It's also the only feature documentary  I have ever directed.

But the reason I did it is because I needed a thing to edit, because I wanted  to be an editor and I needed a calling card.

Scene from film It’s Elementary: Let’s put that over here.

I like calling names.

All right, well, let's put that kind of on the same side  since probably calling names is connected.

Shirley Thompson: Itʻs Elementary is a film, that was made in 1995 about teaching  elementary school children about gay and lesbian people in age appropriate  ways.

It was completely revolutionary.

Scene from film It’s Elementary: And then the first might catch it.

And then they won't be able to get married.

Yeah.

A man and a  woman could have it.

It's also like that.

I think… Shirley Thompson: There was this extraordinary backlash to keep the work from being made and to tap it down.

And that's was kind of the activist was born in me from then on that social issues, social justice  aspect of the work became super important to me.

And that's my priority these days.

That's  really kind of all I want to work on.

(music) Marlene Booth called me.

I  could use an editor.

Would you consider coming to Honolulu to edit  my documentary about Pidgin, the language?

Scene from film Pidgin, the voice of Hawai’i: Befo time, da firsʻ people in Hawaiʻi yusta talk Hawaiian.

But early 1800's  da American missionaries wen come.

Bring English wit om.

Bumbye,  English was all ova da place.

Shirley Thompson: So I came here for to edit a film, which turned out to be just such an important film for me.

Not only because what better primer for a haole who was about to move to Honolulu, but to  work on a film about pidgin.

So to really just get immersed in the language  and the culture and the people.

(music) Once I'm in the editor's chair, I live to serve.

I'm there to serve the director.

I'm there to serve the film, the story.

You know, it's,  really easy to lose yourself in that.

I've added, a more serious meditation practice just to get  myself centered and grounded.

And the older I get, the more that it takes for me to do the all  the maintenance that's required so that this body can keep doing this work.

So you just have  your you're in the chair until until it's done.

Scene from film Finding Kukan: It took me half a lifetime to discover Li Ling-Ai.

And now a  huge part of her story is missing.

Shirley Thompson: I started editing it in 2011, and we finished it in 2016, and it was just done  by the most tenacious director, Robin Lung.

And basically Robin had to lift the third act before  we could know how the film was going to end.

Scene from film Finding Kukan: It's as if Li Ling-Ai reached out to me across the decades to say, don't give up.

Shirley Thompson: As we were editing the film, the the what was happening  in front of the camera was happening.

So we were in a way, just sort of documenting  her journey.

You know, as the editor, absorbing that director's vision and taking that whole  director's vision into my body so I could hold it.

Scene from film Crossing Spaces: Because I went through as a single mom and, I can imagine what  they're going through to.

Shirley Thompson: And know, as well as they know what they're trying to say, but  then also understanding with audience sees.

Scene from film Baseball Behind Barbed Wire: It was universal.

It didn't matter what your skin color was, your faith,  what country you came from.

Shirley Thompson: As the editor, I represent the audience.

Scene from film Island Cowgirls: The basic definition of kuleana is responsibility, but I think within that lies every single value  we've been taught from when we were small.

Shirley Thompson: It's some of my happiest work that I've ever done because of the community that we built,  we have this amazing growing hui of filmmakers, and I have done so much work with Hawaiʻi Women  in Filmmaking.

The experienced filmmakers have been mentoring the emerging filmmakers, and they  don't have to have such a hard time like I did.

They're not, you know, nose bent from having  the door slammed in their face.

You know, instead, we're like, you want to make  films?

Awesome.

Come make films with us, you know?

And that's a that's been  a beautiful, beautiful experience.

Robin Lung: Your eyes.

Your hands.

All of the women you shape.

And those that shape you.

I am Hawaiʻi raised, kamaʻāina.

My family goes back for generations  here on the Windward side.

And on Maui.

And, Kaimukī.

I really don't know how my mom managed to  raise four kids.

We had a little Boston Whaler.

We piled all our supplies in.

First thing he made us  do was hike half a mile from camp and dig a lua.

So that's how we went to the bathroom for, like,  three weeks.

I couldn't believe my mom.

You know, she hung out with us.Every week, once a week she  would come to get, home to get fresh water and, more food.

And she chants one a couple  times.

I would go with her in the car and she would chant all the way home.

I can't wait to take a hot shower.

I can't wait to take a shower.

But we loved it.

As kids, we just had a ball.

And my mother made those adventures possible.

I really am  thankful to have been raised in Hawaiʻi, and I think that's one of the reasons that  I'm committed to tell stories about Hawaiʻi.

My mother took us to the library once a week.

My sister and I were huge readers.

We would borrow our maximum amount of books every week  and we would read through them.

That's where really where my love of story, my love with  storytelling came from.

All of those trips to the library and reading all those books.

I realized that, you know, the stories of many people who live in Hawai'i were not being  recorded or told in mainstream media, like, Scene from film Finding Kukan: All right, mentally and otherwise.

Okay.

Robin Lung: I really feel that women's stories are underrepresented in media.

I've always been drawn to books about women, movies about women, and there just aren't enough  and definitely not enough about women in Hawai'i.

And so I've been privileged to learn about  a lot of strong, unsung heroes in Hawai'i, not just Queen Liliʻuokalani, but people  like Beadie Kanahele Dawson, Nancy Bannick.

Beadie Dawson: When the alums at first asked me to come and  give them some legal guidance.

Robin Lung: Beadie Kanahele Dawson is a modern is a modern queen.

She fights for the Hawaiian people in all kinds of ways.

She went to law school as  an older woman in her 50s to get a law degree.

Beadie Dawson: More people who know about hoʻoponopono more people who know about self introspection  is the way to find peace throughout the world.

Robin Lung: Nancy Bannick was a photojournalist who's really known for  helping to save Honolulu's Chinatown during the urban renewal era, when they wanted to  destroy practically all of it to develop.

Nancy Bannick: Well, I would hope that we would get people who cared enough about  something, you know, to get in there and make themselves heard and fight for it.

Make some noise  about it and really get in there and fight for it.

Robin Lung: Queen Liliʻuokalani was our last reigning Hawaiian monarch.

To me, she's a hero because she refused to take up arms against the United States  when they illegally took over her country.

She refused to put her citizens in danger.

I think  that for me, she she represents perseverance.

Nancy Bannick, she's known as a real passionate,  historic preservationist.

Beadie Kanahele Dawson is also a preservationist.

She kept fighting  for her people.

I'm really drawn to the stories of strong women.

I had finished  a documentary about Queen Liliʻuokalani and her family home, Washington Place.

And I wanted to do another broadcast documentary about somebody who was Chinese from  Hawaiʻi, a woman I really wanted to feature a woman who was Chinese from Hawaiʻi.

And at the  top of my head, I could not think of somebody who had a larger than life story to tell that  could carry a feature documentary.

And I felt like that was number one big problem.

Why can't I think about this?

I have I've grown up with strong Asian women all  my life.

Why doesn't one pop into my head?

Scene from film Finding Kukan: Way back in the 1940s, this one woman made an impact on a media  industry that's still dominated by men.

Robin Lung: It took me two years to find Li Ling-Ai, and then it took me another eight years to bring  her story into the film Finding Kukan.

Li Ling-Ai co-produced an Academy Award winning film back  in 1941, and the film was called Kukan.

I was so shocked.

Like, first of all, how come I never  heard of this woman, Li Ling-Ai and she's from Hawaiʻi and she's Chinese?

And why haven't I heard  of this film Kukan?

I was obsessed at finding information about this film and about her life.

She didn't have children.

And one of the things that I realized, women's stories get carried  forward a lot of times by their children.

Scene from film Finding Kukan: You cannot change a world by a big idea, but you can change it one by one.

And  I'm going to change it one by one, because the other side of me Chinese.

Robin Lung: When I witnessed the impact of Kukan on these scholars in China, I realized that the importance  of this film was not that it won the Academy Award, it was that it had captured a moment in  history that otherwise would have been lost.

Scene from Finding Kukan: They watched the agony of a blazing  city.

Their city, where their homes are now rubble and ruin.

Where the small  possessions of their simple lives are ashes.

Robin Lung: As a filmmaker, I'm more of a conduit for a story that  somehow a story finds me and it needs to come out.

And it's using me as a filmmaker, as  a vehicle to get told to the world in a new way, perhaps.

I'm just kind of channeling it.

Yeah.

So this whole Windward side is my kupaʻāina, as they call it.

That's your like, you're  rooted in that place.

If you're kupa of a area, ʻāina is land.

So, you know, like the  land that where you're rooted from.

Tiare Ribeaux: E hō mai ka ʻike mai luna mai ē O  nā mea huna noʻeau o nā mele ē I think of filmmaking as this extension of writing  oli, a building off, of course, this this lineage of oli, this thousand years of storytelling, and  oli and moʻolelo and mele.

So it's not like we're starting from scratch, but we're able to bring  a contemporary lens about what is happening to our islands today, because our ʻāina and our  wai is not what it was 100 years ago or even 50 years ago or even 10 years ago.

Like things  are constantly changing.

And within this hulihia, we have to continue to update the stories.

Aloha mai kākou.

My name is Tiare Ribeaux.

I'm a filmmaker and artist.

I was born and raised  in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, between Kaimukī and Pālolo Valley.

I grew up with a single mom.

But I felt  like I had we had a wealth of it felt like life was abundant because she never kind of made  made it seem like we were without, you know.

But we were.

Yeah, we in other people's eyes, we  were struggling.

You know, I was raised by my mom, my aunt, my grandma.

And that was beautiful to be  in kind of like that house of women growing up.

A genre that I really like to create work in is  magical realism.

So I want to push beyond the boundaries of kind of the normal story.

Even in  documentary, there's ways to kind of expand beyond and to, to bring in the magic, because our  stories here are very magical.

Our stories here are very spiritual, just like innately  growing up here, spirituality is embedded in so much of our lives and moʻolelo about our  different akua, our different, elemental deities, was really woven into my day to day experience.

I would just listen to the wind, sit by the river and just be like, listening for messages like,  that's just like a normal thing to just be like, I am sitting with with different akua  right now and asking for guidance.

In 2011, I was in Egypt, and it just so happened  that I was in Cairo right before Arab Spring.

So I arrived in Cairo, I was staying with this family,  and two days later, like the city was on fire.

[crowd chanting].

It was the beginning of  this, this hulihia for them, this transformation.

And that was  just a really exciting time to me.

I happened to have my camera on me.

It was  just like a a Canon DSLR.

And I was just like, all right, I'm going to go out to Tahrir  Square and I'm going to just capture this, this moment.

And I did.

And the family I  was staying with was like, you're crazy.

We can't let you go.

Like, like you could get  killed.

And I was like, but I have to go.

I remember waking up and being like, this is  what I'm called to do, and just being really excited to be alive.

[kids chanting] What happened  afterwards was unfortunate, but that movement at the time was this spark of hope.

As a lāhui in  Hawaiʻi, in a similar way, I think the beauty of what I've seen recently in certain movements  like Mauna Kea, like the return of Kahoʻolawe, the fires in Lahaina, these things, as horrific  as they are, has brought us together as a community to really protect each other.

Protect ʻāina, protect wai and see what's most important so we can live in abundance  as we did so we can thrive as a lāhui.

Scene from film Ulu Kupu--music: Ulu Kupu has a little bit of a history.

It came from a collaborative workshop with Nanea  Lum.

The film culminated in the River Wai Ke Akua, which means, Water of the Gods.

And  basically, the three actors were just listening and responding to their shared  experience within that river.

And that became a really this really important synthesis point  for all other films I've done in Hawaiʻi since.

When I found out about the Red Hills spills, I  was I was still based part time in the Bay area.

I was finishing my masters at Berkeley, and I just  remember feeling like this deep pain, like this, deep like like piercing.

Like I don't even know  how to describe it, but it was one of the most painful sensations I felt in my body when I  found out how badly, our wai was poisoned.

And so I felt again, this kāhea as a filmmaker,  to translate what was happening into a film, into a story.

And to me, the most important story  to tell was this more visceral story of what was happening, that experience of being poisoned.

And  to add a bit more softness and poeticism to it.

Scene from Pōʻele Wai (As the Water Darkens): The chaos arranged it and the body emerged.

Tiare Ribeaux: So Pōʻele Wai was really kind of a culmination of all of these things.

It was a  culmination of just being in community of learning in community, bringing in moʻolelo of both the  area and also ʻōlelo noʻeau, the time in my work, I ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope, sometimes we have  to look to the past to move into the future, Looking into the future at these sites  that are occupied by the military, in spaces we think we will never get back, like  Pearl Harbor.

I think majority of us are like, well, that's just gone.

But I think it's  important to start to imagine, like ways that this land can be returned and more and more  and believing that it's possible, you know.

Like growing up, I didn't think it was possible  that growing up, I didn't believe in sovereignty, like I didn't.

I thought, you know, like  the movements, I would see the protests.

I was just like, that's like a dream,  you know?

But in the past, you know, five years and and being home again, I just  believe it is the only way that weʻll heal, that it is the only and best way for  Hawai'i to to exist now and into the future.

It's been interesting to look back  at all of the films that I've made, and to see that the connecting thread has been  water.

This focus on the health of our water and our connection to water, and how when we  lose that pilina, everything falls apart.

And so to to heal is really to build pilina again  and to remember the stories of these places.

Knowing those moʻolelo will heal us.

And  that's really the core of these films.

[chanting] It is a really exciting time to be kanaka and  to watch these things be restored, be reclaimed, and for us to live in a place of abundance  again, like it is happening as we speak.

Like, yes, there is struggle every day, but also  little by little the water is being returned.

More kalo is being grown.

More of us  are really stepping into our kuleana, which is what will lead the  way to our independence.

(music)