WAILUKU – Debuted at the 43rd Hawaii International Film Festival presented by Halekulani in 2023, “Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool,” by Maui filmmakers Leah Warshawski and Todd Soliday, will soon have an Academy Awards-qualifying theatrical run in Santa Monica, Calif.

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at HFF, “Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool,” is about local Maui surf instructor Bull Kotter and his mentorship of homeless youth during the COVID pandemic. It was one of the last stories filmed in Lahaina before the 2023 wildfires.

Based in Kula, producer/director Warshawski and her husband, director/editor Soliday, began chronicling Robert “Bully” Kotter’s inspiring work with local children who lived in Lahaina encampments and his free surf lessons in 2020. The fires destroyed Bully’s home and business, left several of the film’s crew and cast homeless, and threatened many of the encampments where the children lived.

The process of qualifying for Academy Award consideration is not easy. “For a short documentary, it has to be under 40 minutes, and it requires you to do a theatrical run where the film plays every day for seven days in a row, and it has to be in Los Angeles or New York,” Leah Warshawski explains.

There are certain film festival screenings that count, but, “we’ve won five awards with this film so far, but none of them were specifically what the Academy needs,” she says. “It’s ironic because audience awards are never eligible, even though we won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at HIFF last year, at our premiere.”

So the couple are paying out of their own pocket to screen it in Santa Monica. “I’ve always had this idea since day one that I really wanted to qualify this film,” she says. “And so we are doing it ourselves to make sure that this film makes an impact in the world.”

Warshawski and Soliday previously made the documentary “Finding Hillywood,” which won audience and best documentary awards at festivals, and “Big Sonia,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Barcelona International Film Festival.

Touring with “Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool” on the Mainland, they have been surprised to discover that many folks seem unaware of the fire devastation on Maui. “We found that a lot of people in the Mainland have no idea what happened in Lahaina and the severity of it. It’s been out of the news for a while. It’s always shocking to us. We just are constantly educating people. One of the reasons that we feel strong about touring with this film is so that we can keep Lahaina in people’s minds and people’s hearts. This film is a way for us to share some stories from Lahaina and share what things were like before the fires and inspire people to care.”

Impacting audiences, Warshawski says they were particularly hearted by a screening at a middle school in Kansas. “We showed it to 500 kids at the school all day long. Most of those kids have never been to Hawaii. But by the end of the film, they all were just in awe of how beautiful the water was and what kids in Hawaii do for fun outdoors. And they felt, if those kids can be mentors to other kids, if they can make an impact in their community, maybe we can do something here. There’s something about Maui, and the ocean and surfing that people relate to no matter where you are.”

This remarkable documentary is a story of resilience, “and what’s possible when you have a positive attitude and try and help others, and just try and be a good person in the world,” she says. “It shares the beauty of Maui, and some of the attitude here that makes our community so special.”

One of the themes that film explores is homelessness on Maui. “Bully was mentoring and helping out a lot of the homeless youth on Maui,” she notes. “That’s something I think that a lot of people don’t want to talk about, don’t want to think about. Even before the fires, there were so many homeless kids and families living on Maui. It’s one aspect that we wanted to make people aware of.”

Though he lost his home in the Lahaina fire, Uncle Bully is persevering. “He got married after we were done filming,” she says. “They both escaped the fires in a really pretty dramatic way, and him and his wife, Ashley, now are managing a retreat company, Swell Retreats. They’re teaching folks how to surf and teaching about health and wellness and ocean conservation. He’s still running his surf school, and they’re hoping to rebuild – in Lahaina.”

“Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool” will screen at the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica, beginning on Sept. 13, as part of the “Shorts By The Sea” program.