Entertainment

46th annual Hawai‘i International Film Festival coming to MACC on Nov. 14-15

The 46th annual Hawai'i International Film Festival presented by Halekulani will return to Maui with an array of culturally significant documentaries from "EA (Sovereign)" and "Lahaina: Voices of Change" to "Protecting Kahoʻolawe: 50 Years of Aloha ʻĀina."

Screening at Lanai Theater on Nov. 10 at 5 p.m. and the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Nov. 14 at 6 p.m., "The Navigator" pays tribute to Nainoa Thompson, who became the first Native Hawaiian in centuries to navigate a voyaging canoe from Hawaii to Tahiti without a compass or modern instruments.

Nearly 50 years later, Thompson returned to the open ocean for one final, extraordinary crossing. Accompanied by a small crew of student navigators, he journeyed 2,400 miles, guided only by the stars, the rhythms of nature and the teachings of the late master navigator Mau Piailug.

"Becoming a navigator is this pursuit of a really precious relationship with nature," Thompson said in the documentary. "You're out there in this vast ocean on a small canoe, and all you have is nature to show you the way."

Directed by Jordan Manley, "The Navigator" had its world premiere as the opening-night film of the festival on Oahu on Oct. 21. Manley sailed on Hōkūleʻa's voyage to Papahānaumokuākea in the summer of 2021 and later voyaged from Tahiti to Hawaii and then to Alaska and British Columbia. His films include "Iran: A Skier's Journey" and "Tree Line."

"Protecting Kahoʻolawe: 50 Years of Aloha ʻĀina" will screen at the MACC on Nov. 14 at 1 p.m. The film explores the history of the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana and the decades Kahoʻolawe endured as a bombing range by the U.S. military.

George Helm, Emmett Aluli, Kimo Aluli, Kawaipuna Prejean, Walter Ritte, Ian Lind, Ellen Miles, Steve Morse and Karla Villalba made landfall on Jan. 4, 1976, on Kahoʻolawe, to protest U.S. military control and destruction of Hawaiian national lands.

It's preceded by "Sacred Island: Living the Dream," which follows a group of local musicians visiting Kaho'olawe to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic 1976 landing by activists protesting military bombing. They pray at sacred sites and compose new music for an album inspired by the island's mana and the work of the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana.

Screening at the MACC on Nov. 14 at 3:30 p.m., "EA (Sovereign)," directed by Noah Keone Viernes and Sancia Miala Shiba Nash, follows Kanaka ʻŌiwi leader and cultural steward Keʻeaumoku Kapu and his family as they fight to reclaim their ancestral lands in Maui's Kauaʻula Valley. Filmed mostly before the 2023 fire devastated Lahaina, through personal memories, family histories and generations of resistance, the film traces the enduring impacts of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, plantation agriculture, militarization, and unchecked development on Native Hawaiian land and water rights.

Director Viernes was inspired to make the film after investigating his own family's ties to ancestral land and researching the ʻUluʻulu archive at the University of Hawaii's West Oahu campus.

Screenings at the MACC on Nov. 15 will open at 1 p.m. with Pacific Islander stories of roots, reinvention and the search for belonging across the shifting landscapes of the West.

It will be followed by "Lahaina: Voices of Change" at 3 p.m. Distinct from last year's award-winning "Lahaina Rising," director Ty Sanga's latest documentary is rooted more intimately in a Kanaka Maoli perspective, focusing not on the scale of the disaster but on the small steps toward healing -- reflection, reconnection and rebirth. "It's three years later, and we're still dealing with the ramifications of the fire, and a lot of families are still struggling to get by," Sanga told Aloha State Daily.

The film considers recovery not simply as reconstruction, but as an opportunity to restore relationships to ʻāina, culture and one another.

An Emmy winner, Sanga is known for "Hae Hawai'i," "Visions in the Dark: The Life of Pinky Thompson" and "Hokule'a: Finding the Language of the Navigator," which won the Best Made in Hawaiʻi Feature Film at HIFF in 2023.

The festival will close at the MACC at 6 p.m. with "Making the Line," a feature-length documentary on Hālau Hiʻiakaināmakalehua that delves into the world of competitive hula, where athleticism and artistry are inseparable from a living Hawaiian cultural tradition.

The Hawai'i International Film Festival presented by Halekulani takes place on Nov. 14 and 15 at the MACC. Tickets are available at Mauiarts.org.