Maui filmmaker’s documentary wins regional Emmy Awards
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When Maui filmmaker Stephan Boeker of Pacific Storytellers was hired to document the work of architect David Sellers and his Hawaiʻi Off Grid company, Boeker had no idea the project would take an unexpected turn.
What began as a profile of Sellers' innovative work evolved into the short documentary "Journey Beyond the Grid: The Hawaiʻi Off-Grid Story," which ultimately earned two Northern California Regional Emmy Awards.
Previously winning an Emmy for "Trilogy: It's in the Heart," about the Maui-based sailing company, Boeker was ready to highlight the work of the Hawaiʻi Off Grid architecture and engineering firm when the 2023 Lahaina fire hit.
He had been filming in Lahaina the morning of Aug. 8, 2023, and left around noon. "The original story that we had developed with Hawaiʻi Off Grid, our last interview was going to be on Aug. 9, and the fires happened on Aug. 8," Boeker recalled. "I was actually shooting in Lahaina in the morning on another project, and it got so dicey and so apocalyptically crazy that we called it, and I started driving home before the main fire ignited."
Calling the company, he reported: "I don't have a good feeling about tomorrow's shoot. Maybe we want to postpone it. Well, the postponement ended up being more like a year. Lahaina happened, and so the story had to change."
The company approached Boeker in 2021 "to help in getting their message out," he explained. "People were perhaps not seeing sustainable development and off-grid living as really a viable option."
Hawaiʻi Off Grid specializes in sustainable design, with a mandate that all buildings operate at net zero. The award-winning short that Boeker produced follows Sellers from his early days as a fisherman in Alaska to founding a Maui company designing green homes that are off-grid in both energy and water.
The break in filming provided an opportunity for the focus of the doc to shift. "It was no longer a marketing piece that explained this isn't just something for the well-to-do who can afford the upfront cost," Boeker noted. "The heart of Hawaiʻi Off Grid really came to the fore in how they acted, and what they did in response to such a tragedy. Then that really became the conduit to touch an audience's heart, which hopefully would also then move their mind towards action that will help all of humanity."
Collaborating with the Family Life Center, a nonprofit serving Maui's homeless, Hawaiʻi Off Grid designed the temporary, off-the-grid 'Ohana Hope Village in Kahului. "Maude Cumming is in the film and she approached David Sellers and Hawaiʻi Off Grid to help her develop this," said Boeker.
Interviewed in the film, Sellers said, "Lahaina has been a call for action."
Boeker and Pacific Storytellers previously produced an Emmy-winning short film that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Coon family's Maui-based Trilogy Excursions sailing tours.
"Journey Beyond the Grid: The Hawaiʻi Off-Grid Story" won Emmy Awards for Business/Consumer-News or Long Form Content and one for Outstanding Achievement in Editing.
"It feels good to have a panel of peers recognize the work," Boeker said. "It tells me that it's of a certain standard and quality. It is certainly validating, and it tells me we are headed in the right direction and doing good things for good people. Life goes on whether I got an Emmy or not, but it certainly is a beautiful thing."