Ka Hana Kapa
- Filmmaker(s)
- Joy Chong-Stannard
- Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl
- Category
- Full-Length Film
- Subject Matter
- History, Culture, Arts & Music
Ka Hana Kapa documents the history of kapa in Hawaiʻi and follows the complex process of Hawaiian kapa making from start to finish.
Hawaiian kapa is one of the most beautiful art forms in the Pacific. In ancient Hawaiʻi, kapa, or bark cloth made from the wauke plant (Broussonetia papyrifera), was used for clothing, bedding, the wrapping of precious iwi (ancestor’s bones), important ceremonies, and a myriad of other purposes, making it an integral part of everyday life in Hawaiian society. But with the coming of foreigners and western cloth, the practice fell into decline, and by the end of the 19th century, kapa making had all but ended. During the late 1960s and the 1970s, as part of what is now often called the Hawaiian Renaissance, a small group of women sought to revive this ancient art. Ka Hana Kapa is the story of kapa making in Hawaiʻi, as told by these dedicated women and their students, who have given new life to this intricate cultural practice
KA HANA KAPA is a PIC Acquisition.
Joy Chong-Stannard - Producer/Director/Editor
Joy Chong-Stannard is a Hawai‘i based independent filmmaker. Her fascination with Hawai‘i history led to directing and editing numerous documentaries for public television. Her most recent production is Canefield Songs: Holehole Bushi, narrated by ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro. She has also produced, directed, and edited five programs in the ongoing Biography Hawai‘i series.
Other productions exploring the dynamic social and economic upheavals of Hawai‘i’s history include Betrayal, the award-winning nationally broadcast docudrama of the overthrow of Hawai‘i’s last reigning monarch; 1946: The Great Hawai‘i Sugar Strike; The Great Hawai‘i Dock Strike; and Getting Somewheres, an oral history-based drama about Hawai‘i’s working-class women. Her production of Ka Hana Kapa, tells the inspiring story about a small group of women who sought to revive the ancient art of making kapa or Hawaiian bark cloth.
Victoria Kneubuhl - Producer/Writer
Victoria Kneubuhl is a well-known researcher, writer and educator. She is the researcher, writer and co-producer for the popular local series Biography Hawaiʻi on PBS Hawaiʻi, and she has written other documentaries as well that feature local history and historic sites. She is also the researcher and scriptwriter for numerous living history and humanities programs for historic sites and community organizations. Her many plays have been performed in Hawaiʻi, the continental United States and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her volume of plays, Hawaiʻi Nei has been published by the University of Hawaiʻi Press as have her three mystery novels set in the 1930s in Hawaiʻi. She is the recipient of the Elliot Cades Award for Literature and the Hawaiʻi Award for Literature, the highest literary honor in the state.
