Actors Benedix Ramos (left) and Justin Basobas are among the regular characters in the six episode series, “All the Things I Leave You (Patawid).” The trailer has gone viral with more than 4 million views on YouTube and 2 million on Facebook. Courtesy photo

Maui resident Lance Collins has produced a Philippine-based web series with a Hawaii connection, and the trailer has already generated millions of views.

“It was a little surprising,” said Collins, who also works as a Maui attorney. “The views are all over Asia and the world.”

Collins hopes to have the series out by early summer. So far, the focus has been on showing the production at film festivals and in academic settings.

The series, “All the Things I Leave You (Patawid),” is a new Ilokano-language drama rooted in the legacy of Maui’s sugar workers — a story written by Collins.

The trailer has received more than 4 million views on YouTube and 2 million on Facebook. It had its world premiere at NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ+Film Festival, on Oct. 13.

Collins said the six-episode drama has been selected for the Africa International Human

Rights Film Festival in Nigeria on Dec. 8-10, and the Tianjin International Academic Film Festival in China on Dec. 20-21.

Collins said he started developing the story about 15 years ago when his Filipino grandmother died and he was left with a box of photographs and letters.

He’s been fascinated by the journey of Filipino workers who came to Hawaii and, after retiring, returned home to the Philippines, where their pensions carried far more buying power.

“It’s a story that explores the life of the grandfather as a young man working in Lahaina in the 1940s,” Collins said.

In the fictional story, the young sugar worker experiences the reality of hard work as a sugar laborer, a far different life on Maui than his recruiter described.

“The wages were horrible,” Collins said.

The story also looks at modern life in the Philippines where the retired grandfather starts a restaurant, marries a relatively young wife and looks at the prospect of grandson taking over the business.

Collins said as producer, part of the challenge was finding funding and also in telling the story in the Ilocano language, the language of his characters. The work involved older and younger people who had their own versions of Ilocano.

University of Hawaii professor Pia Arboleda, who has seen the program at a private showing, said Collins’ production represents a landmark achievement in presenting LGBT issues in the Philippines.

“The program itself is very ambitious. Normally, things like this are left unsaid,” said Arboleda, who teaches Filipino and Philippine culture in the Department of Indo Pacific Languages and Literatures.

Arboleda said she enjoyed the scenery of Ilocos and the multi-layered complexity of shifting into different time periods. “It is wonderful,” she said.