MEDIA RELEASE

The Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) returns to Hawaii Island the week of Oct. 23-29 at Hilo Palace Theater bringing a full program of new release independent films from around the globe.

The festival opened with the Hawaii-made THE HAUMÄ€NA directed by Keo Woolford, awarded the Audience Choice Award for the Favorite Narrative Feature by filmgoers that attended HIFF on Oahu from Oct. 10 to Oct. 20.

THURSDAY, OCT. 24, 2013

OLA
Thurs., Oct. 24 | 5:00 PM
United States 2013 | 79M
DIRECTOR: Michael Nagato
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8key2piKMus

A timely and emotional debut documentary that celebrates Hawaii’s most cherished social values. OLA challenges us to rethink what it means to be healthy. The film explores the widespread social factors that affect our ability to create a thriving, sustainable society and offers an intimate look at individuals who have brought hope to their communities. Since its premiere, this powerful and inspirational film has spawned a movement to energize our communities and create a healthier future for all.
Preceded by:

SENDING ALOHA ABROAD
United States 2013 | 27M
DIRECTOR: Sean Aronson
TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/60641652

SENDING ALOHA ABROAD is a documentary that tells the story of Hawaii’s integral role in the early years of the Peace Corps organization. From 1962 to 1971, nearly 10,000 Americans came to Hawaii to train for their two year Peace Corps service. Funding from the training program directly led to the formation of the University of Hawaii at Hilo among many other cultural and educational institutions in Hawaii.

PLASTIC PARADISE: THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH
Thurs., Oct. 24 | 7:30 PM
United States 2013 | 57M
DIRECTOR: Angela Sun
PRODUCER: Tanya Leal Soto
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joseph Ochoa, Angela Sun
TRAILER: http://vimeo.com/42143924

PLASTIC PARADISE provides eye-opening insight into the potential health and environmental consequences of plastic over consumption and pollution. The film features stunning scenic shots alongside appalling visuals of the dire effects of pollution. This documentary provides an informative, timely and relevant look at the consequences of plastic consumption, posing crucial questions that lead to collective actions we can take to stem the environmental and health damage created by this synthetic product that “never goes away.”

Preceded by:

FISHING PONO: LIVING IN HARMONY WITH THE SEA
United States 2013 | 26M
DIRECTOR: Mary Lambert

Directed by award winning filmmaker Mary Lambert, FISHING PONO’s graphic images of the commercial exploitation of Pacific fisheries leave no room for doubt that current practices are unsustainable and will leave nothing for future generations. Featuring lifelong fisherman Kelson Poepoe, we learn from his fishing conservation program on Molokai that is based on historical practices, and is an inspiring story of how one community turned the tide on a seemingly doomed resource.

FRIDAY, OCT. 25, 2013

FUREVER
Fri., Oct. 25 | 6:00 PM
United States 2013 | 80M
DIRECTOR: Amy Finkel
PRODUCER: Amy Finkel
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gregg De Domenico
TRAILER: http://vimeo.com/60014424

Pet care in the United States is a $52 billion per year industry, and the care and expense that many lavish on their pets is not limited to the living. Many Americans are finding ways to grieve, memorialize, and preserve the pets with whom they have formed powerful bonds. FUREVER travels across the U.S., interspersing interviews and footage from a range of those affected by pet loss — from bereaved pet owners to veterinarians, psychologists, religious experts, taxidermists, a pet psychic, specialists in pet freeze — drying and mummification, makers of jewelry derived from pet DNA-even a pet cloning service. Without editorializing, FUREVER presents a range of viewpoints, allowing viewers to decide for themselves how to answer the question: Where do we draw the line between “acceptable” and “going overboard?”

Written, produced and directed by Amy Finkel, FUREVER is a provocative, eye-opening, and at times, graphic exploration of how far people will go to hold on to memories of their beloved non-human companions.

LION ARK
Hawaii Premiere
Fri., Oct. 25| 8:00 PM |
United Kingdom 2013 | 97M
DIRECTOR: Tim Phillips
SCREENWRITER: Tim Phillips, Jan Creamer
PRODUCER: Tim Phillips, Jan Creamer
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tony Pattinson
CAST: Jorja Fox, Bob Barker, Mel Richardson, Pat Craig, Pat Derby

More action adventure than traditional documentary, LION ARK follows the world’s most ambitious and daring animal rescue, with a narrative meticulously compiled from film, interviews, conversations and the reactions of participants as events actually unfold.

A shocking undercover investigation leads to a ban on animal circuses in Bolivia. But the circuses defy the law. The team behind the investigation return, track down the illegal circuses to save every animal. The confrontations, heartache and incredible risks the rescue team face are all captured while the team struggle to rescue the animals and airlift them to eventual freedom. It is an uplifting story of bravery, compassion, camaraderie and determination. It is what happens when a poor but proud country says “no” to cruelty, and attitudes toward animals are changed across an entire continent.

SATURDAY, OCT. 26, 2013

THE ROCKET
Sat., Oct. 26 | 2:00 PM
Australia, Laos 2013 | Lao with English subtitles | 96M
DIRECTOR: Kim Mordaunt
SCREENWRITER: Kim Mordaunt
PRODUCER: Sylvia Wilczynski
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andrew Commis
CAST: Sitthiphon (Ki) Disamoe, Loungnam Kaosainam, Suthep Phongam, Alice Keohavong, Boonsri Yindi
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDxt4gKyGfo

Winner of both the Best First Feature award at Berlinale and Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca, THE ROCKET is a heartwarming coming-of-age tale set entirely in Laos. Kim Mordaunt, who made the excellent documentary BOMB HARVEST, which was also set in Laos, is clearly invested in the people and culture of the region, and tells this story with great empathy and authenticity.

Ahlo is the surviving twin of a difficult birth and is believed by some to be a source of bad luck. When 10-year-old Ahlo and his family are displaced by the construction of a dam, further tragedy strikes as they relocate. Upon reaching the relocation village, Ahlo befriends young Kia and her eccentric uncle Purple, but is still ostracised by the superstitious community, and even treated with suspicion by his own family. Ahlo decides that his only hope of redemption is the Rocket Festival: a riotous, and dangerous, annual competition where huge bamboo rockets are set off to provoke the rain gods. Despite being too young to enter the competition, Ahlo is determined to succeed.

Set amidst a beautiful landscape, and with lovely performances by the young actors, THE ROCKET is a sensitive and uplifting film.

SAND WARS
LE SABLE: ENQUETE SUR UNE DISPARITION
Sat., Oct. 26 | 4:00PM
France 2013 | French with English subtitles | 74M
DIRECTOR: Denis Delestrac
PRODUCER: Nathalie Barton, Laurent Mini, Guillaume Rappeneau
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Marc Martinez Sarrado
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAPfwwb59uY

By the end of the 21st century, beaches will be a thing of the past. That is the alarming forecast of a growing number of scientists and environmental NGOs. Sand has become a vital commodity for our modern economies: we use it in our toothpaste, detergents, and cosmetics, computers and mobiles couldn’t exist without it. Our houses, skyscrapers, bridges and airports are all basically made with sand: it has become the most widely consumed natural resource on the planet after fresh water. The worldwide construction boom fuelled by emerging economies and increasing urbanization has led to intensive sand extraction on land and in the oceans, with damaging environmental impacts.

SAND WARS takes us around the world as it tracks the contractors, sand smugglers and unscrupulous property developers involved in the new gold rush, and meets the environmentalists and local populations struggling to reverse the threat to the future of this resource that we all take for granted.

ANITA
Sat., Oct. 26 | 7:00 PM
United States 2013 | 84M
DIRECTOR: Freida Lee Mock
SCREENWRITER: Freida Lee Mock
PRODUCER: Freida Lee Mock
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bestor Cram, Don Lenzer, Erik Daarstad
CAST: Anita F. Hill, Charles Ogletree, Jill Abramson, Jane Mayer, John W. Carr
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YFAHn_OpjI

On Oct. 11, 1991, a poised, young law professor sent shock waves through the nation as she sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee intrepidly testifying to the lewd behavior of a Supreme Court nominee. Twenty years later, Academy Award winner Freida Mock brings us ANITA, which crystallizes the sexist power dynamics in the room that day and unravels the impact of that lightning-rod moment in Anita Hill’s life and the broader discussion of gender inequality in America.

Contemporary interviews with Hill and her allies and unsettling archival footage reveal the way her attempt to report confidentially on Clarence Thomas’ conduct quickly became a perverse and vicious public attack on her character and credibility. With Thomas playing the race card and a bevy of male senators lobbing ideological bombs, Hill’s hearing became a charade of justice. Yet her audacity to speak truth detonated a national debate about sexual harassment that revolutionized gender politics. As girls and women express what Hill’s sacrifice has meant to them, we’re moved to shout, “We believe you, Anita.”

SUNDAY, OCT. 27, 2013

GO GRANDRIDERS!
不老騎士-歐兜邁環台日記
Sun., Oct. 27 | 2:00 PM
Taiwan, ROC 2012 | Taiwanese with English subtitles | 75M
DIRECTOR: Tien-hau Hua
PRODUCER: Yi-ying Lin, Ben Tsiang, Xenia Chang
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ying-min Chang, Wei-cheng Chang, Tien-hau Hua
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgZcWTC70L4

For all its old-people-can-also-dream cliches, this documentary by director Hua Tian-hao manages to continually surprise with its sincerity alone. With an average age of 81 and a long string of ailments and life-threatening diseases among them, 17 ordinary elders spent 13 days making a round-the-island motorcycle trip across Taiwan in late 2007.
Their heroic feat is delightfully captured in GO GRANDRIDERS, which transcends its mundane settings with heartfelt and sometimes hilariously moving remarks by its participants.

Hailing from a diversity of backgrounds – a former Kuomintang soldier and a Kamikaze instructor who fought on opposite sides of the war; a loving couple in a long, long marriage and a faithful widower who’s still head-over-heels in love with his late wife after 21 years – the self-proclaimed Grandriders banter like adorable little kids, bond over their trip and seemingly find the secrets to living meaningfully to the end. An inspiring, overwhelmingly upbeat road movie, HIFF is honored to bring back the biggest box-office grossing documentary in Taiwan’s history for a return engagement!

THE LOVING STORY
Sun., Oct. 27 | 4:00 PM
United States 2011 | English | 77M
DIRECTOR: Nancy Buirski
SCREENWRITER: Susie Ruth Powell
PRODUCER: Nancy Buirski, Patricia Romeu, Elisabeth Haviland James
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Steve Milligan
CAST: Mildred Loving, Richard Loving
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h62ZBiHNJoM

A racially charged criminal trial and a heart-rending love story converge in this definitive documentary about Mildred and Richard Loving. The marriage of Mildred (who was part-black and part-Native American) and Richard (who was white) was declared illegal in 1958 by their home state of Virginia. They refused to leave one another and, with the help of the ACLU, relentlessly pursued their right to happiness. Their case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where, in 1967, it struck down laws against interracial marriage in this country once and for all. With luminous, newly discovered 16mm footage of the Lovings and their lawyers, first-person testimony and rare documentary photographs, this film takes us behind the scenes of the legal challenges and the emotional turmoil of the landmark case. THE LOVING STORY recreates a seminal moment in history and reflects a timely message of marriage equality in a personal, human love story.

THE LOVING STORY is part of Created Equal, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, facilitated locally by the Hawai’i Council for the Humanities.

ONE NIGHT SURPRISE
Sun., Oct. 27 | 7:00 PM
China 2013 | Mandarin with English subtitles | 108M
DIRECTOR: Jin Yimeng
SCREENWRITER: Jin Yimeng
PRODUCER: Eva Jin
CAST: Fan Bingbing, Daniel Henney, Ni Hongjie, Pace Wu
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0U5Jq_5OQ

ONE NIGHT SURPRISE is the story of a driven career woman, Michelle (Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing), who on the night of her 32nd birthday party drinks too much and soon after discovers she is pregnant with no recollection of who the father may be. After narrowing the field of would-be fathers (including the hunky Daniel Henney), she finds herself in awkward situation after awkward situation.

Director Eva Jin, the first Chinese female filmmaker to pass the $16 million mark in the male-dominated Chinese film industry, has created a movie that is equal parts, romantic, whimsical, and slapstick screwball comedy. She manages to maintain a light-hearted tone and tell a story with insight and reflection on being a career woman in her 30s. Jin allows the heroine, Michelle, to explore the idea of finding the right person to love and be the father of her child as she sees fit, in a world where “a woman’s worth is defined by how much men are willing to pay.”

MONDAY, OCT. 28, 2013

THE GOD OF RAMEN
ラーメンより大切なもの
Mon., Oct. 28 | 5:00 PM
Japan 2013 | Japanese with English subtitles | 90M
DIRECTOR: Takashi Innami
SCREENWRITER: Hiromitsu Iwaida
PRODUCER: Akira Nishimura, Toshihiro Yamada
CAST: Shosuke Tanihara, Kazuo Yamagishi

To ramen lovers, Kazuo Yamagishi is a god. His ramen may seem like the traditional Tokyo style ramen, but there is great depth in his culinary practice. From the shop’s opening 50 years ago, Yamagishi managed to create his distinct and unique flavor, attracting customers from all over Japan. As a matter of fact, they would queue outside the shop until they were served, a ridiculously long wait of over two hours on a typical weekday.

Unlike JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI, which was beautifully shot, but we learned very little about Jiro himself, GOD OF RAMEN plays out like a 90 minute episode of “Soko Ga Shiritai” and is shot over a decade, with cameras following Yamagishi-san. For all his jolliness and happy demeanor, he is a chef who is married to his work, and deep down inside, a sad man carrying the legacy of his deceased wife. This, of course, takes a toll, as his health declines and his apprentices move on to open competing businesses. In the end, GOD OF RAMEN is a chronicle of one man’s life and his impact on the community and the art of ramen itself.

IF ONLY
SANA DATI
Mon., Oct. 28 | 7:00 PM
Philippines 2013 | Tagalog with English subtitles | 100M
DIRECTOR: Jerrold Tarog
SCREENWRITER: Ramon Ukit
PRODUCER: Jerrold Tarog, Daphne O. Chiu
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mackie Galvez
CAST: Lovi Poe, Paulo Avelino, Benjamin Alves, Ria Garcia, TJ Trinidad
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ0Ao4QQ-yI

Winning awards for Best Direction and Best Film in the Director’s Showcase at this year’s Cinemalaya, HIFF is proud to present IF ONLY, the final film in Jerrold Tarog’s Camera Trilogy (CONFESSIONAL and MANGATYANAN being the two previous films). It is a love story about a woman whose wedding is thrown into disarray when a mysterious person arrives and reminds her of the man she really loves.

GMA Network’s Sunday All Stars host Lovi Poe plays Andrea — a woman with secrets of her own. As she begins to prepare for her upcoming nuptials to the ambitious politician Robert (TJ Trinidad), Andrea meets Dennis (Paulo Avelino) the wedding videographer — who is on a mission to get information from her. As the two begin to bond, Andrea begins to reminisce on her secret past, and her doubts on marrying Robert begin to grow. A moving film about contemporary love and relationships in present day Philippines, IF ONLY is imbued with a romantic spirit that is set to send audiences on an emotional roller coaster.

TUESDAY, OCT. 29, 2013

OSHIN
おしん
Tues., Oct. 29 | 5:00 PM
Japan 2013 | Japanese with English subtitles | 107M
DIRECTOR: Shin Togashi
SCREENWRITER: Sugako Hashida, Kota Yamada
PRODUCER: Arimasa Okada, Nobuyuki Tanizawa, Kensuke Zushi
CAST: Aya Ueto, Gorô Inagaki, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kayoko Kishimoto
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvAMBRTTeXY

Ten-year-old peasant girl Oshin Tanimura (Kokone Hamada) lives a meager existence. Her parents are so poor, they can’t afford to feed their children. So when Oshin’s father unapologetically forces her to leave the village to become a live-in maid and babysitter for a wealthy family, she willingly accepts it and urges her mother not to cry. Little does the child know, she is about to enter a series of hardships that will test her fortitude and set her on the road to becoming a strong and selfless woman like her mother Fuji, played by Aya Ueto (THERMAE ROMAE, HIFF 2012).

Set in the Meiji era, Oshin is an emotional tale about love and familial duty that doesn’t just tug at the heartstrings; it also examines the way Japanese women are simply expected to shoulder the overwhelming burden of caring for their husbands, children and elderly parents. The original NHK drama that this film is based on, was wildly popular around the globe, as well as in Hawaii, when it aired 30 years ago.

JADOO
Tues., Oct. 29 | 7:30 PM
United Kingdom 2013 | 90M
DIRECTOR: Amit Gupta
SCREENWRITER: Amit Gupta
PRODUCER: Amanda Faber, Isabelle Georgeaux, Richard Holmes, Nikki Parrott
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Roger Pratt
CAST: Amara Karan, Kulvinder Ghir, Harish Patel, Tom Mison
TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9gZL_LtA00

Two brothers, both wonderful chefs, fall out catastrophically. At the climax of their dispute they rip the family recipe book in half — one brother gets the starters and the other gets the main courses. They set up rival restaurants, on opposite sides of the same road, and spend the next twenty years trying to outdo each other. Neither brother will admit it, but they both know they are not entirely successful without the “other half” of the menu. It takes a daughter — a successful London lawyer, Shalini, marrying a man from a different ethnic background — to reunite them.
She is planning her marriage and is determined that they will both attend. Can the men bury the hatchet without actually burying the kitchen knife?

Directed by Amit Gupta, JADOO stars Amara Karan of THE DARJEELING LIMITED, and is joined by veteran performers Harish Patel (RUN FATBOY RUN) and Kulvinder Ghir (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM). Dueling family stories, especially dealing with food is nothing new, but JADOO is a fun look at contemporary, working class South Asian life in the UK. Oh, and the food in the film is absolutely scrumptious too!

Established in 1981, the Hawaii International Film Festival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of cultural exchange and media awareness in the Pacific Rim. HIFF is a premier international film event that has won the praise of governments, filmmakers, scholars, educators, programmers and film industry leaders across the globe. HIFF’s programming has two specific mandates: to be a festival of record for emerging films from Asia and the Pacific and to present the top festival films from around the world. HIFF annually screens films from more than 40 countries and presents content and panels in film, music, mobile entertainment and gaming.

— Find out more:
www.hiff.org