News and Events => Arts & Entertainment News => Topic started by: Shana A on April 07, 2014, 10:36:36 PM Return to Full Version
Title: Hawaii Documentary 'Kumu Hina' Profiles Native Hawaiian Mahu Teacher
Post by: Shana A on April 07, 2014, 10:36:36 PM
Post by: Shana A on April 07, 2014, 10:36:36 PM
Hawaii Documentary 'Kumu Hina' Profiles Native Hawaiian Mahu Teacher
A conversation with Joe Wilson, director of a new documentary about Kumu Hina Wong-Kalu.
James Cave
http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/April-2014/Hawaii-Documentary-Kumu-Hina-Profiles-Native-Hawaiian-Mahu-Teacher/?utm_content=buffer377d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer (http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/April-2014/Hawaii-Documentary-Kumu-Hina-Profiles-Native-Hawaiian-Mahu-Teacher/?utm_content=buffer377d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer)
For the Hawaii International Film Festival Spring Showcase, HIFF organizers will be wrapping up the event's closing night with a documentary about kumu hula Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, titled Kumu Hina. Long a Hawaiian cultural practitioner, Wong-Kalu has recently been more publicly active as the chair of the Oahu Island Burial Council, a big presence at this year's legislative session hearings for Senate Bill 1, and is now running for a seat on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board of trustees.
In early 2011 and the school year of 2011-2012, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson filmed Wong-Kalu's life as it happened at school and how it began to include her new Tongan husband as he moved from Fiji to Hawaii to live with her for the first time. It is equally about Hina's personal struggles as a mahu, her professional life as an educator of Hawaiian tradition, and her domestic life with her husband, Haemaccelo, or Hema. It is about how all of these lives intersect and affect one another, and how they affect her students at Halau Lokahi—specifically, Hoonani Kamai, a biological girl who identifies as a "rare middle person." Kamai wants to lead the all-boys hula team in its annual performance, and becomes a prodigy to Kumu Hina, blossoming into a leader with strong ku, or masculine spirit—just one of many layers in the film.
After its premier at HIFF, the film will take a trip around the festival circuit, eventually airing on public television nationally in 2015.
A conversation with Joe Wilson, director of a new documentary about Kumu Hina Wong-Kalu.
James Cave
http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/April-2014/Hawaii-Documentary-Kumu-Hina-Profiles-Native-Hawaiian-Mahu-Teacher/?utm_content=buffer377d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer (http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/April-2014/Hawaii-Documentary-Kumu-Hina-Profiles-Native-Hawaiian-Mahu-Teacher/?utm_content=buffer377d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer)
For the Hawaii International Film Festival Spring Showcase, HIFF organizers will be wrapping up the event's closing night with a documentary about kumu hula Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, titled Kumu Hina. Long a Hawaiian cultural practitioner, Wong-Kalu has recently been more publicly active as the chair of the Oahu Island Burial Council, a big presence at this year's legislative session hearings for Senate Bill 1, and is now running for a seat on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board of trustees.
In early 2011 and the school year of 2011-2012, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson filmed Wong-Kalu's life as it happened at school and how it began to include her new Tongan husband as he moved from Fiji to Hawaii to live with her for the first time. It is equally about Hina's personal struggles as a mahu, her professional life as an educator of Hawaiian tradition, and her domestic life with her husband, Haemaccelo, or Hema. It is about how all of these lives intersect and affect one another, and how they affect her students at Halau Lokahi—specifically, Hoonani Kamai, a biological girl who identifies as a "rare middle person." Kamai wants to lead the all-boys hula team in its annual performance, and becomes a prodigy to Kumu Hina, blossoming into a leader with strong ku, or masculine spirit—just one of many layers in the film.
After its premier at HIFF, the film will take a trip around the festival circuit, eventually airing on public television nationally in 2015.