Director Susan Kucera’s latest projects include a slack key guitar documentary
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Acclaimed for award-winning documentaries such as "Living in the Future's Past," "The Breath of Life" and "Hot Money," former Maui resident Susan Kucera is working on two Hawaii-themed projects -- a slack key guitar documentary and a paniolo feature film.
With John Cruz involved with the slack key documentary, Kucera has been filming some of Hawaii's musicians. "He's the thread through the film," Kucera said about Cruz. "He is so supportive of all the slack key artists who have all been sharing of their hearts. John would bring his guitar or his bass and introduce us to people. Maui's Ka'io Martin Cruz has been especially pivotal in helping us. It has been a special experience."
The music doc team includes executive producers Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges, Grammy and Academy Award-winner T Bone Burnett and veteran music manager Jean Sievers. Burnett also plans to produce an album in conjunction with the film.
"I am a documentary filmmaker, and so my intention is always to educate and entertain," Kucera said about the forthcoming doc. "Part of my youth I spent in Oahu, going to elementary school in the early '70s when the Hawaiian Renaissance was really going on. I went to the Ala Wai Elementary School, the same elementary school that Brother Noland went to, although we were in different years. That experience really stuck with me my whole life. I made a film called 'Breath of Life' that Eric (Gilliom) did some of the music for and featured Maui's beloved Vene Chun. Anytime that I can help showcase the Hawaiian culture, then that's what I want to do."
A GoFundMe site has been set up for cultural practitioner Chun, who has spinal cancer, at www.gofundme.com/f/support-venes-fight-against-spinal-cancer.
Kucera has collaborated with Gilliom on several projects. "He did all the music for a film that came out 6 months ago on Apple TV called 'Wild Genius,' and he did all the music for 'Hot Money,' which was named one of the top 10 films about money, the economy and climate change," Kucera said. "He's just an amazing, versatile friend and artist."
Working in film since her youth, she began her career as a camera assistant studying Canada's Athabasca Glacier while creating educational short films with her father, glaciologist Dr. Richard Kucera, for Encyclopedia Britannica Films.
"My father was a geomorphologist, a volcanologist and a glaciologist," she explained. "He specialized in glaciers and volcanoes. "That's why we ended up living in Hawaii because it was the year that Kilauea was erupting. It was a great upbringing. I learned how to film at a very young age on a good old-fashioned Bolex and how to edit. The love of filming never went away."
Among her works, "Living in the Future's Past" was narrated by actor Jeff Bridges.
"We were casting around for a narrator, and my executive producer said, 'What about Jeff Bridges?'" said Kucera. "My agent reached out to him, and we just really hit it off. He was really involved in that film, a real collaborative effort. I liked it because, first of all, it spoke to different walks of life. So it wasn't pigeonholed, like left or right, and it really looked at our energy systems, including ourselves. So it was pretty matter-of-fact, but it was also very poetic, and like the Hawaiians would say, it had a lot of kaona, hidden meaning."
The prolific filmmaker recently headed for England on an invitation to film a beautiful garden called Great Dixter.
"It's very old, and they have an amazing philosophy about life and our role in the environment. I've been invited to do some preliminary filming, but that film will take probably three or four years before it's done," he said.
"I just finished a film on wolves and other animals as co-travelers in American history, which will also be narrated by Jeff Bridges. I filmed with the Shoshone people and also the Apsáalooke people, otherwise known as the Crow."
Finally, there's the paniolo project that is in the development stage, which she is producing with Bridges and Jean Sievers.
"We're still tweaking the story," she explained. "We're talking with a potential director."