A 'Voice' united
Catherine Bauknight’s ‘Hawai’i: A Voice for Sovereignty’ wins Film Festival Audience Award
By Carl Kozlowski 07/02/2009
Four years of filming, and untold hours interviewing native people and visiting usually off-limits sacred locations has resulted in a Maui Film Festival award for “Hawai’i: A Voice for Sovereignty,” a documentary by Pasadena’s Catherine Bauknight.
Bauknight, a photographer for the Pasadena Weekly whose work has appeared in Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone, said there are plans in the works for a theatrical release of the 83-minute film in Los Angeles, New York and Hawaii.
“It’s been amazing to have the support of the people at the Maui Film Festival, not only for me and the film but for the Native Hawaiian community, and the Hawaiian community seems to be responding in a very positive way to this film,” Bauknight said, speaking from Kihei, Maui. The film won the festival’s award for Audience Choice Best Hawai’i Film.
Directed by Bauknight, with Aleck Cheney as executive producer and Sandy Banks as associate producer and written, edited and narrated by Mark Alexander, “Hawai’i: A Voice for Sovereignty” traces the culture, spirituality and connection of the native people to the land since the US takeover of the islands in 1893.
Prior to being shown in Maui, Bauknight screened her documentary at the Capitol building in Washington DC during an event on June 4 attended by local Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff.
“It was wonderful to see Congressman Schiff there,” Bauknight said. “None of the Hawaiian representatives came, and I felt Congressman Schiff was very gallant to come and support me.”
Said one critic, Paul Janes-Brown of the Maui Weekly, “’Hawai’i: A Voice for Sovereignty’ should be required viewing for every school child in Hawaii and every tourist should see it on the plane.”
“My goal,” Bauknight said in a statement issued at the festival, where the film formally premiered on June 21, “is to enhance the awareness of indigenous people by enabling them a voice to tell their own story, which contributes greater knowledge to the family of mankind. … It was an honor to reveal their story through the voice of the people.”
For more on “Hawai’i: A Voice for Sovereignty,” visit catherinebauknight.com or write or call Renata Lorenc at renata@rulapr.com or (917) 690-1275. For more on the Maui Film Festival, visit mauifilmfestival.com.
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