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Hawai’i Film Festival Raises the Bar With Record Number of Premieres, Premium TV Section Launch (EXCLUSIVE)
The Hawai’i International Film Festival is raising the bar with a record number of world premieres and the launch of a premium TV sidebar.
Hailing from New Zealand, with dialog in English and Samoan, “Tinā” sees Anapela Polata’ivao (“Our Flag Means Death”) portray a well-respected and gifted vocal coach endure family tragedy and venture out of her comfort zone to become a substitute teacher at an elite, all-white private school. The other feature films in competition are Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó’s “Agent of Happiness,” from Bhutan; Luka Yang Yuanyuan’s “Chinatown Cha Cha,” from China and the U.S.; Yamanaka Yoko’s “Desert of Namibia,’ from Japan; Vietnamese-led co-production “Don’t Cry Butterfly,” by Dương Diệu Linh; Yang Yi’s mainland Chinese hit “Escape From 21st Century”; Neo Sora’s “Happyend,” from Japan and the U.S.; “Homegrown,” Michael Premo’s film about three Trump supporters; Jalena Keane-Lee’s “Standing Above the Clouds”; Matthew Rankin’s award winning offbeat comedy “Universal Language”; Brenda Michell, Michael Toledan and, Jennifer Wickham’s “Yintah,” about Canadian women protesting a pipeline development; and women defending their rights and reproductive futures in Maise Crow and Abbie Perault’s “Zurawski V Texas.” This year it includes: the world premiere of Seok Yang Woo’s “About Family”; Lou Ye’s “An Unfinished Film”; Kip Oebanda’s “Balota”; Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”; Steve McQueen’s “Blitz”; Jia Zhang-ke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Alexandre O. Philippe’s “Chain Reactions”; Zoe Eisenberg’s “Chaperone”; Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s “Cloud”; John Hsu’s “Dead Talents Society”; Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez”; Gints Zilbalodis’ animated “Flow”; Mikhail Red’s “Friendly Fire”; Kuno Yuko and Yamashita Nobuhiro’s “Ghost Cat Anzu”; Sasha Rainbow’s “Grafted”; Su Hung-en’s “Hunter Brothers”; Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here”; Mike Jonathan’s “Ka Whawhai Tonu: Struggle Without End”; Anselm Chan’s “The Last Dance”; Sue Kim’s “The Last of the Sea Women”; E.oni’s “Love in the Big City”; Paul Wolfram’s “Marimari” from Papua New Guinea and New Zealand; Van Tran Nguyen’s “The Motherload”; Rachel House’s “The Mountain”; Benjamin Rhee’s Sundance prize-winner “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin’; Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; Nakao Hiroyuki’s “Sisam”; Karan Kandhari’s “Sister Midnight”; the world premiere of Albert and Herbert Leung’s “Stuntman”; Reema Kagti’s “Superboys of Malegaon”; Krunal Suresh Padhiar’s “Voice”; William Goldenberg’s “Unstoppable”; six-part “V/H/S Beyond” from Shudder; and Su I-hsuan’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”
Or read this on Variety