PIC Films in Maui Film Festival June 12-16, 2013
Entering its much anticipated fourteenth year of cinema-under-the-stars, the 2013 Maui Film Festival will be held June 12-16, 2013 in Wailea, Maui. Taking place at the Celestial Cinema located at the Wailea Gold and Emerald Golf Course, the Castle Theater at the state-of-the-art Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului, the Seaside Cinema located between the Four Seasons Maui and the Grand Wailea, the festival will offer a full schedule of screenings and special events throughout the Wailea Resort. Award ceremonies throughout the festival will honor Jessica Chastain, Kirsten Dunst, Brie Larson, Eddie Aikau and Nainoa Thompson.
In addition to star-studded ceremonies, the schedule is packed with screenings of life-affirming films, inspiring filmmakers, and fabulous events that will highlight the culture, food, and beauty of Maui. Tickets and passes for the festival are on-sale now at www.mauifilmfestival.com.
Two PIC-funded films will make their world premiere at the festival!
Fishing Pono: Living in Harmony with the Sea
Celestial Cinema - Wailea
Gold & Emerald Golf Course
Directed By: Mary Lambert Executive Producer: Teri Tico
Screenwriter: Teri Tico
Cinematographers: Mike May, Mike Waltz
Featuring: Kelson 'Mac' Poepoe, Mauna Kea Trask
The more the government regulates fishing, the fewer the fish to be found. That's the warning of Uncle Mac Po‘epo‘e on Molokai. As fisheries decline, he is helping people take the problem in their own hands.
Uncle Mac Po‘epo‘e is konohiki—traditionally, the local land manager and environmental cop—to the Mo‘omomi shoreline on Molokai. "Not too many people can tell you how an ecosystem can function properly," he says. But he can. And he has been stern about managing those waters. "After you run out," he says, "no more nothing. That's not the time to fix the problem."
In this documentary, Uncle Mac is interviewed by young lawyer Maunakea Trask, who by the way looks great in swim trunks. He reports that since 1988, commercial fishing has declined more than half a million tons a year. Not so at Mo‘omomi. Regulations that for years were prohibitive have now become constructive.
"Not taking too much," says Uncle Mac. "Learning from the people who came before us—that's pono fishing!"
The sea has always been the Hawaiian pantry, but centralized control has failed to keep the pantry stocked. Small communities can lead the way to reform of resource management. Learn from small places.
Islands of Sanctuary
Screenwriter: Jessica Abbe
Cinematographers: Andrew Black, Will Parrinello
Editor: Quinn Costello
Narrated by: Graham Greene
What is sacred? Some put their minds on the purity of Heaven. But indigenous people are still fighting, with some success, for the right to live on Earth, on ancestral land where they feel a kinship with spiritual forces and with previous generations.
This vivid documentary puts together two such indigenous contests. One is taking place in northern Australia's Arnhem Land, where mud-daubed aboriginal people are rallying to prevent the mining of their dance grounds and the industrial degradation of nearby McArthur River. Terrible old images of chained "aborigines" are matched with the news that these people were formerly governed not by white justice but by "wildlife laws." The struggle continues.
The second portion brings this doc right home to Kaho‘olawe. By analogy with the Austaliam natives, we get wonderful footage of the anti-U.S. Navy pushback that began here in the mid-'70s, with focus on leading native Hawaiian figures such as the martyr George Helm. That struggle, too, continues.
Author Barry Lopez states in the end: "The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference." This piercing documentary slaps away at indifference.
Partial funding provided by Pacific Islanders in Communications, Vision Maker Media and Sundance Institute Documentary Fund.
Categories: Film Festival