The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is likely America’s main entry point for Pacific Islander, Asian, and Asian American productions. The 41st annual LAAPFF took place May 1-7 in various L.A. venues and was presented by Visual Communications, an L.A.-based media organization whose “mission is to develop and support the voices of Asian American & Pacific Islander filmmakers and media artists who empower communities and challenge perspectives. Founded in 1970 with the understanding that media and the arts are powerful forms of storytelling, Visual Communications creates cross-cultural connections between peoples and generations.”
As a film historian/critic who has co-authored three movie history books with Luis Reyes, chronicling the screen image of Hawaiians and other Islanders from Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, at LAAPFF, I focus on the “P.” It’s exciting to see how South Seas Cinema is growing, as more and more Indigenous filmmakers contribute to this film genre that, since 1898, has been dominated by “Haole-wood”—white filmmakers cranking out movies full of South Seas celluloid stereotypes, catering to the white dominant majority culture. As LAAPFF proves, more and more Islander filmmakers are creating works by, about, and for Natives. Exhibit A is Hawaiian helmer Alika Tengan.
Indigenous auteur directs touching father-son story, Hawaiian style
In my LAAPFF coverage so far, I have reviewed two Polynesian documentaries that focus on wahines (women), Virginie Tetoofa’s Te Puna Ora set at Moorea in French-occupied Polynesia, and Standing Above the Clouds by Jalena Keane-Lee, which takes place at the Big Island of Hawaii. Writer/director Alika Tengan’s exquisitely beautiful, award-winning Moloka‘i Bound is a major step forward in Indigenous Islanders making films about themselves for themselves—as well as, of course, for broader audiences, but going far beyond the South Seas celluloid stereotypes that have predominated in “Haole-wood” studio productions made by and for the dominant majority population of Haoles (whites).
Co-produced by Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker, Moloka‘i Bound opens at Oahu’s Halawa prison. Kainoa (Holden Mandrial-Santos) is being released after serving time, and his younger sister ‘Ōlena (Kamalani Kapeliela) picks him up to temporarily bunk at her home with a wary husband and daughter, who is put out by having to give up her room to accommodate her wayward uncle. The nearly two-hour movie centers on whether or not the ex-con can rise above his circumstances and turn his life around. In particular, the heart of this feature is whether, after spending so much time behind bars, Kainoa can reestablish a father-son bond with his 14-ish-year-old boy, Jonathan (Achilles Holt)?
The theme, of course, has a universal quality—for instance, the white Russian Ivan Turgenev wrote Fathers and Sons in 1862, and the white American John Steinbeck wrote East of Eden in 1952. But Alika Tengan also gives his fictitious story that’s so full of truth, a decidedly Hawaiian spin. There is the preoccupation with reclaiming the almost lost language of the Hawaiian people; the importance of ocean voyages and of taro; the yearning for homeland and roots in a land where the Natives have been so uprooted. Most of the dialogue is spoken in Pidgin English, that patois combining various dialects used in Hawaii, which bestows a deep sense of authenticity upon the characters, but may be hard to follow for non-Hawaiian moviegoers.
While cultural concerns are front and center in Moloka‘i Bound, the attuned viewer will see bumper stickers, signs and more in the background emblazoned with slogans such as “Shut Down Red Hill” (a reference to U.S. Navy tainting of local water) and the anti-overdevelopment “Help Keep Moloka‘i Moloka‘i,” that allude to the current political situation in Hawaii, enhanced by Moana Hom’s keen eye for realistic production design.
The cast includes ʻĀina Paikai as Keala. Like Alika, Paikai is a gifted director. His 2010 short comedy Moke Action is a hilarious take on the use of Pidgin, while his 2022 Hawaiian Soul is a beautiful short about Hawaiian activist George Helm that’s just begging to be turned into a feature-length movie, just as Moloka‘i Bound began life as a short.
Alika adeptly directed his cast, with lead actor Holden Mandrial-Santos turning in an understated, truthful, always convincing performance as a man trying to do the right thing, even if he sometimes falls short of his own ideals and aspirations. Tengan has an artistic eye—his feature makes great use of the Aloha State’s stellar locations, much of it being shot on location at Oahu’s Windward side, including vistas from Like Like Highway, Kaneohe Bay, Kaneohe Harbor, and deep-sea fishing scenes lensed out at sea.
Moloka‘i Bound also has eye-popping, spectacular cinematography of the eponymous isle, which rarely graces the big screen (except in movies about Father Damian, the 19th-century so-called “leper priest”). In 1989, I kayaked down the “Moloka‘i Express,” and the Friendly Isle left an indelible mark on my heart, so it was heartwarming to see it in all its glory once again.
Late in the movie, we find out why young Kainoa turned to crime: In order to help feed his ohana (family), in a society where Natives have been dispossessed. It is an explanation, but not necessarily a justification for wrongdoing. Will Kainoa be able to get his life back on track? Re-establish his romance with Jonathan’s mother Jessica (Kalena Charlene)? Most importantly, will Kainoa succeed in renewing his father-son relationship with his child?
To find out you’ll just have to see Moloka‘i Bound, which won awards at the Hawaii International Film Festival and at other filmfests, and breaks classic Kanaka cliches and stretches the boundaries of the South Seas Cinema genre, with a nuanced, realistic, authentic depiction of Hawaiians by Hawaiians—and for the world. Alika Tengan, who previously directed 2022’s Every Day in Kaimuki, which world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, is a major rising talent full of promise we should keep our cinematic eyes on.
For info re: LAAPFF see here. For more info on the film, go here.
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