As rising sea levels threaten the loss of their motherland in Hawaiʻi, the Philippines, China and North America, four women fight to preserve the volcano, ocean, land and air for future generations.
Directed by: Jess X. Snow
Produced and Written by: Kit Yan • Co-Produced by: Adriel Luis • Executive Producers: Andreas Nicholas & SJ Murray • Story by: Kit Yan & Jess X. Snow • Production Design: Peter Pa • Starring: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Kayla Briët, Isa Borgeson & Wang-Ping Oshiro • Original Music: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu & Kayla Briët • Sound Design and Mix: Anders Link
Created with support from:
HINALEIMOANA WONG-KALU also known as Kumu Hina, is a native Hawaiian māhū - a Hawaiian term referring to individuals who embody both male and female spirit–as well as a modern transgender woman.
She was a founder of the Kulia Na Mamo transgender health project, cultural director of a Hawaiian public charter school, and candidate for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. She also served as the Chair of the O'ahu Island Burial Council, which oversees the management of Native Hawaiian burial sites and ancestral remains.
Wong-Kalu was the subject of the feature documentary film Kumu Hina, which premiered as the closing night film in the Hawaii International Film Festival in 2014 and won several awards including best documentary at the Frameline Film Festival and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. It was nationally broadcast on PBS in 2015 where it won the Independent Lens Audience Award.
KAYLA BRIET is a 20 year old mixed-race filmmaker, musician and artist. Briët's short documentary, Smoke That Travels, immerses viewers in her native Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation heritage and explores fears that her culture may someday be forgotten. This film has screened and won awards at over 45 festivals internationally, including MoMA in NYC, and has been archived in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. The film also earned her a year-long fellowship with Sundance Film Festival in 2016.
As a multi-instrumentalist and self-taught composer, Briët also scores her own films and creates music in styles ranging from cinematic to alternative pop to electronic. She performs live as a one-woman band, with her keyboard, guitar, loop pedal and guzheng zither, a traditional Chinese instrument. Currently, she is creating and directing documentary and experimental film as well as immersive experiences in the virtual reality space.
Isabella “Isa” Borgeson is a queer, multiracial Filipina American artist, international slam poet, and educator from Oakland, California who views her poetry as an artistic extension of her activism and community organizing.
In December 2015, she was selected as one of four poets in the world to perform at the United Nations Climate Change negotiations in Paris for COP21, where she spoke to global leaders about the impact of climate change on her Philippines homeland. Her poetry is influenced by the two years she spent organizing rehabilitation projects after super typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda devastated her mother's hometown.
She has been featured on CNN, the Inquirer, Guardian, and Berkeley News. Her passion and commitment toward social justice issues and teaching poetry as a tool for resistance, empowerment, and healing keeps her grounded in her communities across the Pacific Ocean – a homeland from Oakland to Tanauan.
WAN PING OSHIRO is a Chinese American immigrant from Yenping, China and mother of Kit Yan.
She immigrated to Oahu at the age of 25, teaching herself english and survival in America, bringing with her ancestral knowledge of planting, healing, and farming.
She has since then sponsored her entire extended family to immigrate to Hawaii.
Ping is the proud mother of three children and has been a McDonalds worker, hotel maid, and currently a massage therapist at the Stadium Swap Meet.
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