The 2025 Hui Mo‘oleo Film Festival will feature the premiere of some short animated films that celebrate the history, culture and sense of place in Lahaina. Shown here are (from left) Kalapana Kollars, Anuhea Yagi and baby Luana, Lopaka White, Dean Tokishi, Skippy Hau and Wallette Pellegrino. Courtesy photo

Memories of Lahaina will be brought to life with the free 2025 Hui Mo’olelo Film Festival presented at the ProArts Playhouse on Feb. 22 and 23.

Hosted by Maui Public Art Corps in collaboration with Maui County, Hale Hōʻikeʻike at the Bailey House/Maui Historical Society and the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, this unique event features the premiere of some short animated films that celebrate Lahaina history, culture and sense of place.

“Kupuna of Lahaina were asked to share their stories and memories of Lahaina, and we captured their stories in July and August 2024,” explains Kelly White, chair of Maui Public Art Corps.

Embarking on the Lahaina story gathering project, Kalapana Kollars, cultural director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, collaborated with Anuhea Yagi, Student of Hawaiian Life Ways, to train a group of students to work with various kupuna.

“Those stories became the basis of an international call for artist proposals and then our community panel reviewed all the proposals in September,” White continues. “The result of that call for artist proposals landed in a mural project at Kamehameha III’s temporary campus in Lahaina, a mural project at Kaiser, and this animation film festival.”

Students from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, School of Cinematic Arts: Jenna Lee, Syril Pecson, Zach Quemado and Abby Worthley; along with Sasha Hercik of Kihei, and Brooklyn-based Oscar nominee Richard O’Connor, were the artists chosen to bring the stories to life.

Story project participants included Jennifer Freeland and her father Haines Burt Freeland, Louis Garcia III and Kaliko Storer, Teva Medeiros and his grandfather Timothy Medeiros Sr., coach Earle Kukahiko and Kaliko Storer, Abraham “Snake” Ah Hee and Myrna Ah Hee, Reverend Gensho Hara of the Lahaina Jodo Mission and his daughter, Yayoi Hara; Sally Ann Delos Reyes and Lopaka White, and Lahaina Restoration Foundation Executive Director Theo Morrison, with a self-recorded story.

“We asked our participants to try to engage in a conversation,” says White. “The animators are basically drawing their interpretations of what they have heard.”

The Rev. Gensho Hara of the Lahaina Jodo Mission and his daughter, Yayoi Hara, are featured in a short animated film that celebrates Lahaina and will be shown as part of the 2025 Hui Mo’oleo Film Festival on Feb. 22-23 at the ProArts Playouse in Kihei. Courtesy photo

In one recording, Rev. Hara recalls arriving on Maui in 1963. “Kahului airport was very small, with only one traffic light nearby. I think it was the only traffic light on Maui at that time. I was brought to Lahaina. There were hardly any people around. In a way, it was a very rundown town.”

Hara’s father/daughter talk-story was animated in three individual artist iterations. “It is so nice to be a part of a project like this, we are uplifted by your enthusiasm and your interest,” Yayoi Hara shared in a news release.

The Rev. Gensho Hara is shown here as an animated character. Courtesy photo

The Hui Mo’olelo storytelling projects were seeded by the SMALL TOWN * BIG ART place-making project that began in Wailuku in 2018. White was hired by the County of Maui “to facilitate positioning the arts as a catalyst to ensure that the identity of Wailuku town was preserved and the stories were preserved,” she recalls. “Public art is not just art in public places, but it really has to be marked by dialogue with the community, and we published all the conversations with community members online, so that people really understood where the stories and the themes and the ideas and the wishes for Wailuku were coming from.”

Seeking further guidance, White reached out to StoryCorps, the non-profit which broadcasts stories weekly on NPR. “They have a really intensive DIY training program,” she says. “Out of the SMALL TOWN * BIG ART, Maui Public Art Corps was born, and we started hearing from other council members and other neighborhoods, why is this only happening in Wailuku? And right after the fires in 2023, we were being asked, ‘why aren’t you covering Lahaina stories? These feel like really important stories to preserve while our kupuna are still with us.’ At that point, we had done some Kahului work, and we had done partnerships on Lanai, but we really needed to partner with the storytellers of Lahaina.”

The animated films are each between three to 15 minutes in length. The festival will also include a surprise performance from a previous Hui Mo’olelo project and a Q&A. The storytellers are expected to attend.

“My partner, Sissy Lake-Farm, the executive director of the Maui Historical Society is the cultural advisor for the entire program and she is an incredible performer and emcee,” says White. “She will be talking and giving her feedback about what it was like to help mentor all of these artists throughout the process. We’re going to have a surprise performance by a previous artist that wrote a collection of mele based on one of these kupuna stories. Then we offer a Q&A with kupuna, sharing how they felt about being a part of the program and how they feel watching the films. It’s going to be really emotional and beautiful.”

The 2025 Hui Mo’olelo Film Festival is presented free at the ProArts Playhouse on Feb. 22 and 23 at 3 p.m. Attendees are suggested to arrive early to ensure a seat as seating is limited to the first 120.