ACM Accelerator, Made In Hawaii, Special Screening
''In August of 1970 a ho‘olaule‘a, a musical get-together, was held in Hana on the island of Maui and the best of the authentic old style musicians were brought there…
Documentaries, New American Perspectives, YES
An inspirational film that captures a moment in time when the lithe and self-aware Ashima Shiraishi, who at 13 was considered one of the best rock climber in the sport,…
New American Perspectives
Officer K (Ryan Gosling), a new blade runner for the Los Angeles Police Department, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what''s left of society into chaos.…
HIFF Extreme
Documentarian and ''King of Cinephilia'' Alexandre O. Philippe returns to HIFF with CHAIN REACTIONS, an exploration of the legacy of Tobe Hooper’s classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. He interviews five…
Made In Hawaii
Misha Miyamoto, 29, lives alone in the house her grandmother left her, has held the same job since high school, and likes her life as is: simple. Unfortunately, her satisfaction…
Documentaries
From 2004-10, O’ahu was a stand-in location for a mysterious island that was a pivotal point of an episodic sci-fi television series that captured the pop culture zeitgeist internationally and…
Documentaries, Kau Ka Hōkū Award Nominee
The film is an unflinching chronicle of Americans at war with each other. Three right-wing activists—a newly politicized father-to-be in New Jersey, an Air Force veteran organizing conservatives in New…
HIFILM Industry Hub, Indigenous Lens, Pacific Showcase, Shorts Program
This program comprises of eight documentary short films made by emerging BIPOC filmmakers living in the U.S. territories, Hawai‘i and their diasporic communities, focusing on stories grappling with issues of…
Panorama, Special Screening
Relegated to the background, Willis (Jimmy O. Yang) goes through the motions of his on-screen job, waiting tables and dreaming about a whole world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes…
Made In Hawaii
KANIELA: THE DANNY KALEIKINI STORY, is a biographical documentary based on the life of the man known as Hawaii’s Ambassador of Aloha, as told in his own words. Born into…
Centerpiece Presentation, Kau Ka Hōkū Award Nominee, Made In Hawaii, Pacific Showcase
After years of incarceration, Kainoa De Silva, a wayward Hawaiian man, is paroled. Fully committed to reconnecting with his family, most important is rebuilding a relationship with his son, Jonathan.…
Documentaries
Weaving together interviews, performances, and rare archival footage spanning over 70 years, this documentary follows the life and artistry of Nobuko Miyamoto, a Japanese American multidisciplinary dancer, singer, performer, and…
Made In Hawaii
In this Maui-set mockumentary, Big Island content creator Alex Farnham plays the Guy, a houseless buffoon with a heart of gold. He chases chickens and sells coconuts in his happy-go-lucky…
Made In Hawaii
PERSEVERE is a story of sacrifice, loss, and the consequences of war. But itʻs also a story of strength, of perseverance, of circumstances that create opportunities for lives and families…
Documentaries
In the early 20th century, before the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the New York neighborhood San Juan Hill was a center of cultural innovation. Musical phenomena like bebop and…
Made In Hawaii
SHAKA, A STORY OF ALOHA investigates the origins, history, and meanings of the iconic Shaka gesture. The film begins with surfers throwing Shakas and questioning where it came from, leading…
Made In Hawaii
It’s the first alien monster movie independently made on Maui! And, of course, the frenzied action happens during Halloween!! Dave (Big Island based YouTube creator Alex Farnham) is a teacher…
Documentaries
An impassioned surfer, Taylor Lane, creates a functional surfboard with 10,000 littered cigarette butts collected from California beaches. The Cigarette Surfboard takes Taylor around the world to learn from professional…
Documentaries, Spotlight on Korea
In THE LAST OF THE SEA WOMEN, an extraordinary band of feisty grandmother warriors wage a spirited battle against vast oceanic threats. Often called real-life mermaids, the haenyeo divers of…
New American Perspectives
An imaginative telling of the story of a Vietnamese American mother-daughter duo who, in their attempt to heal the rift between them, reenact and satirize scenes from celebrated Vietnam War…
Made In Hawaii
A portrait of the influential surfboard builder whose highly crafted boards made for big wave riding were coveted by professional surfers for decades. The film follows Brewer’s career, incorporating in-depth…
HIFF Extreme, Special Screening
In celebration of its 50th anniversary, the festival presents a restored version of Tobe Hooper’s horror genre classic and gruesome satire of American values. A heartland road trip by a…
Panorama
Stories like Anthony Robles’ are the stuff of inspirational fiction, except this one actually happened. Though born without a right leg and growing up in a volatile household, Robles never…
HIFF Extreme
Halloween comes early as the festival screens the latest entry in the popular horror anthology franchise, this time taking place in a sci-fi inspired hellscape. This seventh installment of the…