When I called photojournalist Catherine Bauknight to talk about her new documentary Hawaii A Voice for Sovereignty,
she was sitting in her Pasadena home where she could see the flames of
California’s Station Fire burn the closest ridge of the mountains a
mere couple miles away.
She tells a very different story of the land in her Hawai‘i-based documentary, which plays at Hilo’s Palace Theater tomorrow (Saturday, September 5, 2009) at 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
Richard
was interviewed for and appears in the movie. He told me he was going
to go look for his plastic nose and bushy eyebrows so he could go see
the movie this weekend but stay anonymous. I’d love to see that.
From Catherine Bauknight’s website:
Hawaii
A Voice for Sovereignty, is a documentary about the native Hawaiian's
journey to sustain their culture, spirituality, and connection to the
land. This modern epic documentary, filmed over four years, contains
rare interviews with Native Hawaiians in their homes, at sacred sites,
in mountains and the rain forests. Along with the voices of these
“people of the land”, Professor Haunani-Kay Trask, Senator J. Kalani
English, Grammy nominee Willie K and other Hawaiian leaders, take us
into rarely seen ancient lifestyles where spirituality, culture, and
care for the land form a sacred bond between humankind and the natural
world. They reveal their quest to secure their Hawaiian rights as the
host
culture, and their economic, social, and ecological future.
By bridging their ancient knowledge with modern technologies such as
wind, solar, and wave renewable energy and agricultural land systems
they move towards their goal of sustainability.
Here’s the film's trailer.
Catherine is a seasoned photojournalist whose work has appeared in
Time, Newsweek and People magazines, as well as in the New York Times,
USA Today and Rolling Stone. She was one of five international
journalists who covered the Tiananmen Square massacre.
She
says Hawai‘i was someplace she came to relax, but after awhile she
started looking around. “I started trying to figure out why the
Hawaiians weren’t visible in their own environment,” she says, “and
that led to this four-year documentary.”
She says she started
asking questions and went from person to person getting recommendations
on people to speak with who were knowledgeable about the Hawaiian
culture. “They all told me, You cannot discuss the culture without
discussing the relationship between the land and the people and the
spiritualism and the sovereignty we are seeking.”
She also
kept hearing about the need for Hawaiians to have their land and live
sustainable lives, and then she heard about Richard.
“I asked
Woody Vaspra, who is part of the Sundance ceremonies, if he knew of
anyone who was living off the land and making a living off it and also
including the Hawaiian people,” she says. “He suggested Richard, and
when I spoke to Richard I realized he was exactly what I was looking
for – that he is going back to the land and working on becoming
sustainable, and also working toward using renewable resources. It was
perfect.”
(“I have no idea how we fit into the story line,” says
Richard. “I just gave my standard explanation of what we do at the
farm.”)
Catherine calls the film an “oral history of Native Hawaiians.”
“These
are the kupunas, the scholars, people who are grassroots," she says.
"It’s a combination of Hawaiians from all walks of life, and one of the
most interesting things is that their message is the same. No matter
what their background, from the most grassroots to the most highly
educated. The message about the Hawaiian future, the land and
spirituality is the same.
“And it’s the story of the Hawaiian
people all the way back to the takeover,” she says, “in their own voice
– but not presented with anger, it’s presented as facts. And it leads
up to the renaissance of the Hawaiian people with hope and unity.”
She
says they’ve sent information to the schools here and she especially
hopes people will bring kids to see this story. “I’ve been told that
children as young as 7 years old have sat down and watched this film
from beginning to end, and it’s 84 minutes.”
It sounds like, in
addition to the oral histories by native Hawaiians, there’s a lot to
catch a child’s attention. “There’s hula,” she says, “and an ancient,
very spiritual style of drumming and nose flute by Willie K. He doesn’t
really do that publicly, but he did it in the rainforest especially for
this film. He also does this amazing live rendition of ‘Spirits in the
Wind.’”
Other musicians appear in the documentary, such as Lono
from Molokai, George Kahomoku, Cyril Pahinui, Richard Ho‘opi‘i and
Makana. Catherine says the film’s soundtrack will be available on CD in
a couple weeks. Watch for information about that in about a week at her website.
On
Wednesday the film became eligible to be nominated for an Academy Award, and so it will
open at the Coliseum Cinemas in Manhattan on September 15th, and the
Laemmle Theater in Hollywood on September 23rd.
And then the film
will travel and screen across the Pacific islands, following the route
early Polynesians took on their voyage to become Hawaiians until it
gets back to New Zealand.
Now Catherine says she is looking for
business sponsors, who will have their logo on the film “from now until
eternity.” She says there is just a little more than a week left to
sign up sponsors, and interested parties can contact her here.
Palace
Theater Tickets are $7 general, $6 for seniors and students, and $5 for
Friends of the Palace. Call 934-7010 for more information.
- posted by Leslie Lang
