Film city
The local movie-watching and making scene is ready for its close up
These days, it’s hard to find a time when there’s not a film festival playing in town. Every major city has them, so why not Honolulu? And we’re not complaining.
Tomorrow, this year’s Hawaii International Film Festival kicks off for the 25th year. The event has grown from a seven-film mini fest by the University of Hawai’i’s East-West Center to a cinema extravaganza of more than 200 films from around the world–a global contender with a sterling reputation that draws more than 1,400 film submissions annually.
The growth can, naturally, be attributed to hard-working festival staff members who spend all year poring over submission tapes from aspiring filmmakers from Uruguay or Indonesia or Turkey; then narrowing them down and, finally–with the help of an army of volunteer screening committees–picking the choice few that will make festival goers come back next year.
Films, no matter how spectacular, need an audience to view them or they’re like the tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear it. And now more than ever, it seems Honolulu’s audience is ready to bear witness to film greatness. HIFF’s growth is the obvious example, but everywhere you look, it’s as if film–as opposed to the Hollywood blockbuster–is finally beginning to take hold of the crowd.
A full schedule
The annual Cinema Paradise Independent Film Festival, now in its fifth year, is a huge hit, and though it’s sort of a scenester’s fest, its success can only mean one of two things: the whole city is made up of scenesters (obviously untrue) or this city is developing a taste for film.
The Honolulu Academy of Arts’ Doris Duke Theatre just wrapped up its first Global Lens Film Festival, a national touring event of 10 films from the developing world, out of New York’s Global Film Initiative. The festival, which screens independent films from countries like Mali and Uruguay, makes stops at art institutes nationwide.
The Academy actually hosts a number of film festivals throughout the year, all of which are well received by audiences, says the academy’s film curator, Konrad Ng. Over the past year, he has seen attendance at his theater soar, a trend that he says is proof that Honoluluans are ready to embrace a homegrown film culture.
‘I think the scene is quite good right now. With the Academy for Creative Media, there’s a healthy, organic component to the film scene,’ says Ng, who also teaches auteur theory at ACM. ‘There are people here who are excited about making film and that contributes to it. There are a whole lot of festivals all year round. Every two months there’s something to watch.’ Like September’s little Italian Film Festival that brought in director Marco Ponti and his new film Round Trip. Or Leeward Community College’s recent four-movie Film Noir Fest, which screened 1954’s Hell’s Half Acre, shot entirely on location in Honolulu. Or the University of Hawai’i’s Vietnamese film festival rolling at the Doris Duke Theatre next month. OrÖthe list goes on.
And while those at the forefront of the film scene disagree on the prognosis of the future of film (some say that a bright future is just around the corner, some think it’s a long ways off), they all agree that things can only get better and that the presence of an accredited film school is the foundation for a thriving film scene.
‘It’s not L.A. or New York, but with HIFF, the Academy of Arts and all the other festivals rising in town, there’s much more of a film culture being established,’ says Anderson Le, the film curator for HIFF. ‘It’s also very important that there’s a base from which to nurture a film culture, like a film school–and we finally we have one at ACM. Film literature is becoming much more prevalent in the community. The film school is going in the right direction. I think it can really spearhead the effort to make Honolulu an international cinema port, a resource, a place where there’s a talent base.’
Keep it local
It’s a good thing this city is starting to grow its own talent because the allure of Hawai’i as a film location may be waning. While the natural beauty of the islands is the perfect backdrop for films and television shows, producers also take into account the financial benefits of filming here, and according to the State Film Office, the benefits aren’t always worth it. Hawai’i’s current refundable tax credit for media productions is 4 percent–not enough to draw producers, unless, of course, the production is Lost, which is owned by wealthy ABC. And even the popular television show’s future isn’t entirely secure. Before the start of the second season, producers were considering moving the series to California, which is easier on production pockets.
Mynette Louie, the film industry coordinator for the film office, says it’s difficult to market Hawai’i to the film industry when the incentives are so few–and when the competition is so tough. For example, New Mexico has a 20 percent tax credit and its film office just signed seven feature films. The state is having to import workers to keep up with the load–a scenario that might do Hawai’i’s economy good and that, for now, is just an industry dream. During the last legislative session, the film office launched a campaign to introduce two bills that would increase the tax credit. The bills failed–a major setback for the industry that had hoped that being the production home for a popular television series, a few hit films (Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates), a few not-so-hit films (The Big Bounce) and Cheryl Crow music videos might mean that Hawai’i was finally the spot of choice for filmmakers and other media productions. But the disparity between Hawai’i as a perfect backdrop and Hawai’i as an expensive place where tourism and the military seem to be the only industries that the powers that be are interested in cultivating is huge. One the one hand, the film office has an easy job in selling Hawai’i, on the other hand, it’s the most difficult task in the world.
‘Scripts will be rewritten to fit a location that’s cheaper and there are also foreign locales that we compete with because it’s cheaper,’ says Louie. ‘It’s very expensive to film here. As a result, the film office has shifted its focus to creating a more sustainable local film industry rather than looking to New York or Hollywood.’
And with that vision, the film office is on the same page as everyone else. The agents for local independent film, like Sergio Goes, the conduits for the propagation of national and international film in Hawai’i, like the Academy of Arts, and the people in between, like the HIFF crew, are all working toward a common goal: to nurture Hawai’i’s local film scene. Not that the Hollywood types aren’t welcome–the film office will still work on marketing the islands. But now, thanks to the organic nature of the local scene, it can recognize Honolulu as a future film hub and work toward that end.
Festival must-see
HIFF offers audiences a rare opportunity to see Katharine Hepburn’s ‘lost’ last film–the critically acclaimed–but virtually unseen–writer’s cut of The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley.
Writer-director A. Martin Zweiback flung a 35-page treatment over the garden gate of the house where Hepburn was recovering from hip surgery. The star liked it well enough to write a check for Zweiback to write the script for The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley.
Over the next 12 years, the film would emerge in two versions: the panned theatrical release, titled simply Grace Quigley, overseen by the film’s director, Anthony Harvey (who worked with Hepburn on The Lion in Winter); and the Writer’s Cut. Leonard Maltin called Grace Quigley an ‘abysmal misfire’ but praised The Ultimate Solution, which was never released to the general public.
HIFF screens the Writer’s Cut, followed by a Q+A with Zweiback.
Mon 10/24, for venues and times, visit www.hiff.org or call 528-4433
Enemy mine
A Brit reveals North Korea in the documentary A State of Mind
by Arun Chaudhary
It’s always difficult to depict one’s adversaries in an honest manner. The British are better at this delicate task than the Americans. While Frank Capra produced the incendiary Know Your Enemy: Japan, Humphrey Jennings made Listen To Britain, featuring a Blitz-time concert of German classical music as German bombers destroy London. Another Brit, Daniel Gordon, doesn’t go quite that far in his recent documentary about North Korea, but filming in the world’s most entrenched state requires a different finesse.
A State Of Mind, which is a nominated documentary in this year’s HIFF, follows two North Korean girls, ages 11 and 13, as they prepare to participate in the Mass Games, an event roughly the size of two Super Bowls, the length of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and as intense as a Republican National Convention.
The premise is excellent. The North Koreans are proud of their young gymnasts and are eager to grant foreigners access to them–and to observe anything in the Democratic People’s Republic is to observe some form of control.
Standing the girls in for North Korean society is powerful, but Gordon doesn’t always trust his primary material. The narrator need not explain that the games represent North Korean uniformity, for the propaganda-blaring radio (a perfect replica of the one Donald Duck contends with in Der Fuehrer’s Face, an anti-Nazi short Disney produced in 1942) present in every room tells the story more elegantly. The volume can be turned down, but never off.
A State Of Mind is the first documentary shot by an outsider in North Korea and aspires to be comprehensive. Exposition diminishes the power of the observational sections but is saved from becoming Ken Burnsesque by the quality of the stills and archival footage.
The veritÈ scenes are the film’s best material. In one sequence, Gordon sets two displays of North Korean patriotism back to back. First the girls’ revolutionary history teacher asks the children to recite the three ways in which Kim Jong Il is great. They respond–with sincerity–that he is great in ideology, leadership and aura. In the next scene, a young gymnast belts out to the trainees a song praising Kim Jong Il, which might as well be ‘Waterloo’ by ABBA. The joy comes from being with the group, the feeling of inclusion that characterizes a pack of wolves.
One flaw: The combination of observational and essayistic documentary styles creates structural confusion. The film is loosely chronological, but the month-by-month title cards are far between. One sequence ends with the narrator saying, ‘No one knows when North Korea will open its borders again,’ then fades into ‘11 days later, the border was reopened.’ It’s like a 48 Hours episode, albeit a particularly beautiful one.
At the heart of the difference between ideology and unity lies the dominant Korean faith in self-reliance. The father delivers a speech that would make any Republican proud, saying self-reliance means that what the state won’t provide for you; you must provide for yourself. In this light, the question of whether Kim Jong Il will show at the Mass Games comes to resemble Waiting for Guffman rather than Godot. Ideology, even leadership (however brutal), is the icing; the Mass Games are the cake.
The games–stunningly shot–provide a powerful ending. The sheer numbers of people involved gave the filmmakers shot opportunities that Leni Riefenstahl had to create with camera tricks. When the subjects watch the games, they comment on the uniformity with admiration: ‘No wonder the Americans fear us.’
Though Gordon portrays the North Koreans sympathetically, he never deals with them on their own terms. The film teems with casual praise of Kim Jong Il, which starts to feel rote, as if it was part of the language itself, making the North Koreans seem like dupes, dumb enough to allow their overlords to feed them an inflated self-opinion while the rest of the world knows better.
In 1971, a group of scholars, the CCAS, were the first academics to enter China in 20 years. They asked an old woman what she thought of her government calling the Chinese proletariat the most important people in the world. She said she already knew they were, her foreign visitors proved it. The presence of the filmmakers confirms North Korea’s importance as do biweekly threats against the nation by outside forces. With or without their leaders or their party program, the North Koreans in A State Of Mind seem like a people willing to stick it out together.
Arun Chaudhary is a professor at New York University’s film school.
Fri 10/21, 6:30pm & Thu 10/27, 3:30pm, 528-HIFF, wwww.hiff.org.
5 to watch
From writers to producers, Hawai’i is home to notable up and comers
Who: Anne Misawa, assistant professor at the Academy for Creative Media
Film crew position: cinematographer, director
What to watch for: She’s working on a two-part documentary on the statehood of Hawai’i.
Why she’s worth keeping an eye on: She’s been director of photography on features, short films, commercials, episodic television, music videos and industrials. Her first feature, Eden’s Curve, for which she was director of photography, as well as director, has been screening at festivals internationally since its 2003 release. Her work as a director also includes Waking Mele, a 35mm short that premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film festival and has traveled to more than 30 fests worldwide.
Who she’s keeping her eye on: Students coming out of the ACM.
And, because we have to ask, a favorite film: Harold and Maude
Who: Andrew Ma
Film crew position: writer, director
What to watch for: His upcoming short film Love Abrasive about the underbelly of love and romance starring an all-local cast. It’s in post-production in Los Angeles and is scheduled for a December release.
Why he’s worth keeping an eye on: His first film, Game Over, screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Directors Guild of America’s VC Filmfest in Hollywood. The AMC graduate has also started his own production company.
Who he’s keeping his eye on: Local actress Jennifer Fairbank (she stars as Nikki in Love Abrasive), who’s on her way to Los Angeles to make it big.
And, because we have to ask, a favorite film: Once Were Warriors
Who: Chuck Mitsui
Film crew position: screenwriter
What to watch for: His screenplay based on Santa Monica radio talk-show host and former All Things Considered anchor Joe Frank’s on-air monologues. He’s also working on the screenplay for a coming-of-age piece about teenage angst on the east side.
Why he’s worth keeping an eye on: His first screen film, It’s 8:08, a documentary about local skater boys’ global excursions, debuted here in August to rhapsodic reviews. He wrote, filmed and edited the hour-long doc himself. The film premiered last month in Hollywood to a sold-out crowd.
Who he’s keeping his eye on: He says he’s just learning the local film scene–we’ll have to check back.
And, because we have to ask, a favorite film: Gummo
Who: Mynette Louie
Film crew position: producer
What to watch for: Her blog on Legislative updates, tax incentives and other happenings in Hawai’i’s film and television industry.
Why she’s worth keeping an eye on: As the Hawaii Film Office’s Film Industry Coordinator, Louie is developing strategies to create a sustainable local film and television industry. She also she guides filmmakers through Hawai’i’s production tax incentives; drafts film-related bills and legislative testimonies; oversees the renovation of the state-owned Hawaii Film Studio and creates marketing materials. As a producer and co-producer for New York City’s indie film circuit, Louie worked on Andrew Bujalski’s 2004 Independent Spirit Award-winner Mutual Appreciation. She also held production positions on Lost and Hawaii. She plans to eventually return to New York to continue film production.
Who she’s keeping her eye on: She says to check out HIFF’s ‘Hawaii Panorama’ programs to decide for yourself who’s going places.
And, because we have to ask, a favorite film: The UP Series
Who: Corey Tong
Film crew position: producer
What to watch for: The film production company Makai Motion Pictures, which he started with two others, is currently working on film projects in Hawai’i, Hong Kong and Japan.
Why he’s worth keeping an eye on: He produced the internationally acclaimed feature film, The Land Has Eyes, he has been a key player in the Asian-American indie film movement over the past decade and he partners with leading Asian film investors on production projects.
Who he’s keeping his eye on: Jeanette Paulson and Vilsoni Hereniko, who directed The Land Has Eyes
And, because we have to ask, a favorite film: Happy Together
What’s next
ï The Hawaii State Film Office is planning a series of seminars that will educate local filmmakers on the business side of things such as explaining the legal incentives and permitting 101.
ï The Hawaii Film Studio is being renovated to facilitate an anticipated increase in film production.
ï Sergio Goes is in the final stages of establishing a Honolulu chapter of the Independent Film Project (IFP) that would allow films that screen at the Cinema Paradise Independent Film Festival to qualify for Independent Spirit Awards nominations.
