The documentary “Lahaina Rising” will be one of the films featured in the Hawai‘i International Film Festival, which will include a number of screenings Nov. 8 and 9 at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center and Nov. 15 and 16 on Molokai. Courtesy photo

With a theme of “Convergence,” the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival, presented by Halekulani Hotel, returns for its 45th year with screenings at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. The festival includes several world and Hawaii premieres.

Among the MACC screenings, “Lahaina Rising” will be shown at 6 p.m. Nov. 8 at the MACC. Directed by Lahaina’s Matty Schweitzer, the film chronicles the devastation and resilience surrounding the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfire that tore through Lahaina, while capturing both the staggering loss and the community’s remarkable spirit.

“I’ve been filming for about 15 years, and I run the largest production company in Lahaina,” said Schweitzer, who will attend the screening. “I’m born and raised in Lahaina, with four generations, and when this happened for the first two months, it was just all about helping everyone, organizing in every way we can, whether it’s food or medicine and things like that. I had no idea I was filming for any project until about a month or two into it.”

Through interviews and archival police body cam footage, and exploring the deep historical context, he began compiling what became “Lahaina Rising.”

“A lot of the filming I was doing was just to help family and friends, to see if their house was still standing or things like that,” he explained. “But after the first wave of first responding kind of died down and when FEMA started to take over, it was like, ‘OK, how can I now start to navigate and use the skills that I have to best help my community.’ I quickly realized I am a storyteller. I’m a filmmaker, and there were a lot of outside companies and entities telling stories.

“I was on almost every single news station in the first few weeks, and seeing the way they can kind of manipulate stories to their own liking, I got together with one or two other filmers from Lahaina who, in the same time, we’re trying to look for places to live. This was an opportunity for us to tell the right story, the real story without a hidden agenda. The other films that were going out there, with all due respect, were all told by multi-million dollar companies, whether ABC or NBC or CBS or Apple.”

A cinematographer and documentary filmmaker, Schweitzer comes from a family of watersports legends. His films include “Finding True North” about the remarkable surfer Josh Bogle, who lost all four of his limbs. It won Best Inspirational Film at the Los Angeles Film Awards in January.

With such extensive roots in Lahaina, Schweitzer said, “I believe I’m one of the only ones that was able to actually make a full feature-length documentary at this level that was fully community funded and grassroots. At first, I just thought we were going to tell a short story, and the more and more people I interviewed, I realized much more than the film, it was almost counseling. Every time I interviewed someone, people were able to get things off their chest, and people were able to ask me to shut the cameras off or not share anything.

“The biggest realization is how important the mental aspect of this is for people. I lost eight friends to suicide in the last two years. That’s kind of my biggest realization over the last year is that this isn’t necessarily just to show the world what happened; it’s to show the world how amazing Lahaina town is and how we all came together. People need to see how amazing it is that we all came together. The world needs to see that there is still good out there, that when chaos erupts, it’s not just going to be shooting and looting. There are communities like Lahaina. Everyone helped us.”

Diving into the historical context, “Lahaina Rising” traces how centuries of environmental degradation, rooted in plantation-era policies and modern tourism-driven exploitation, set the stage for catastrophe. The film reveals how these systemic injustices created a fragile, unsustainable landscape and left Native Hawaiian communities vulnerable and underserved, and how residents organized relief efforts, cared for one another and began the long road to healing and rebuilding.

“A lot of that has to do with the way our islands are drying up and our mismanagement of water, and the fact that one company can own 35% of all of West Maui and just sit on the land and let it go defunct,” he said. “I feel it’s not just on the companies. It’s also on our local governments to not let things like this happen in the future.”

Following the HIFF screenings, Schweitzer hopes to get his film out to the world as an inspirational message to communities that might be ravaged by disasters.

“My big hope is that we can get as many people to see this,” he said. “Mainly, I feel it’s going to show a little bit of hope. I hope that if something like this happens again, somewhere else in the world, a community can say, we need to come together like Maui did. We can’t try and steal and rob and loot and all that horrible stuff that happens. I feel the way our community came together is inspiring, and it’s amazing.”

“Lahaina Rising” has been nominated for HIFF’s “Made in Hawaiʻi Award-Feature Film,” with the winner eligible for consideration at the Academy Awards.

The Maui County portion of the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival will present films Nov. 8 and 9 at the MACC and Nov. 15 and 16 on Molokai. Tickets are $17 at www.MauiArts.org.