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r Shorts
Animating an Ancient, Sacred Story How a beautiful story about healing Hawaiian spirits inspired the creative team behind the acclaimed new short Kapaemahu.
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bout 10 years ago, the producer/directors of the prize-winning animated short Kapaemahu Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer were working with Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu on a documentary about her work as a teacher in Waikiki. That’s when she started chanting in the direction of some large stones on the beach, and told them about the origins of the sacred site. The filmmakers knew right then that they needed to go back to this intriguing subject again. As Wilson explains, “As we continued to work with Hina on projects across the Pacific, we realized that she was not only a great film subject but a skilled storyteller in her own right. So when she decided to come over to our side of the lens as the lead director and producer on Kapaemahu, we were thrilled.” Wong-Kalu has known about the stones of Kapaemahu since she was a young boy named Colin playing on the beach in Waikiki. She tells us, “It was only when I transitioned to become Hinaleimoana, and began to immerse myself in Hawaiian culture and language, that I rewww.animationmagazine.net
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might have used to pass it on.”
Mystical Dual Spirits The result of their collaboration is a beautifully animated short which explains the origins of the four mysterious stones on Waikiki Beach and the legendary dual male and female spirits within them. The project, which premiered at Annecy last year and has gone on to win numerous festival awards worldwide, is one of the contenders of this year’s Academy ‘One thing we didn’t expect is the way that the Award and Annies races. film has been embraced by youth. People usually Hamer recalls, “We were inthink of healing and gender diversity as adult spired by the beauty and grace of Hawaiian culture, which in many topics, but as it turns out, kids love the idea of ways is more sophisticated than magic stones.’ anything westerners have come — Director-producer Joe Wilson up with. As America went through its ‘transgender tipping point,’ fialized how they relate to me personally, and nally recognizing that not everyone fits neatly at the same time embody a beautiful part of into the gender binary, it was amazing to be our Hawaiian culture that most people know working on a narrative about a society that nothing about. I wanted to tell the story from recognized, respected and admired gender my perspective as a native mahu wahine and fluidity over a thousand years ago.” to tell it in the language that my ancestors The short’s Oscar-nominated animation di-
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