Environmental Justice and Spirit of Aloha, Part 1

Post-screening conversation with filmmaker Jalena Keane-Lee, director of photography Chapin Hall and filmmaker Sandra Carbonell-Kiamtia. Moderated by Alika Bourgette, University of Washington Ph.D. student.

Back to the Source (2020)

UCLA EthnoCommunications and Theater, Film and Television alumna Sandra Carbonell-Kiamtia weaves home video footage and family photos into this exquisite hand-drawn animation about her father’s journey from the Republic of Mauritius to France and the U.S. Integrating her own youth spent in transit, she explores the sense of longing and loss and the melancholy of the diasporic experience while calling to attention the effects of climate change, geopolitical capital and redevelopment happening in her family homeland. Part of Visual Communications’ Armed With A Camera fellowship program.

Color, in French and English with English and French subtitles, 6 min. Director-Screenwriter: Sandra Carbonell-Kiamtia. Illustrator-Animator: Sylvia Bi.

Standing Above the Clouds (2019)

When the state government approved the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on top of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, mother-daughter protectors rose up in protests and prayers with this encroachment on what they consider the spiritual seat of all Native Hawaiians and Indigenous peoples. Director Jalena Keane-Lee documents these voices of protest conveying a direct urgency as she shows the emotional trauma already at the surface and the transmission of an activist ethos from one generation to another.

Color, in Hawaiian and English with English subtitles, 15 min. Director: Jalena Keane-Lee.

This is the Way We Rise (2020)

Native Hawaiian slam poet, educator, and activist Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio inspires and instills in us the power of words and performance to galvanize change and educate in director Ciara Lacy’s intimate and powerful character portrait. As a member of the Save Mauna Kea movement, Osorio shares how her creative process informs her teaching of the history of exploitation and neocolonialism. Ethics behind development take center stage while bridging identities through creative expression.

Color, in Hawaiian and English with English subtitles, 13 min. Director: Ciara Lacy.