Special Screening of Cane Fire this Saturday, August 20th at the Waimea Theater
In partnership with Kauaʻi Planning and Action Alliance, Kamāwaelualani, I Ola Wailuanui, Iwikua and Kaunalewaa, HAPA is co-sponsoring a special one time screening of the award winning documentary Cane Fire in the historic Waimea Theater on August 20th, 2022 at 12:30pm.
Cane Fire is currently in its theatrical run and not available online. This screening is the Kauaʻi theatrical premiere of the film for a Kauaʻi audience.
Following the screening, we will have a Q&A and discussion with the director, Anthony Banua-Simon. For anyone interested, you are welcome to stay for that as well.
More about Cane Fire
Cane Fire examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi, interweaving four generations of family history, numerous Hollywood productions, and troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast Indigenous and working-class residents as "extras" in their own story.
Described in May in the New York Times as “...there is tremendous educational and moral value in his overview of the history of Kauaʻi. He has a strong grasp of how industries mutate, replicating their practices of exploitation like a cancer. The context he provides in voice-over and through archival footage lends power to his interviews, suggesting the generations of exhaustion that underlie simple statements of frustration and grief.”
There is an interview that came out a few days later in the New York Times also that answers some of the questions about the origin and making of the film.
Synopsis
The Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi is seen as a paradise of leisure and pristine natural beauty, but these escapist fantasies obscure the colonial displacement, hyper-exploitation of workers and destructive environmental extraction that have actually shaped life on the island for the last 250 years. Cane Fire critically examines the island’s history — and the various strategies by which Hollywood has represented it—through four generations of director Anthony Banua-Simon’s family, who first immigrated to Kauaʻi from the Philippines to work on the sugar plantations. Assembled from a diverse array of sources—from Banua-Simon’s observational footage, to amateur YouTube travelogues, to epic Hollywood dance sequences — Cane Fire offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast Indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story
This screening is co-sponsored by Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action (HAPA), Kauaʻi Planning and Action Alliance, Kamāwaelualani, I Ola Wailuanui, Iwikua and Kaunalewa.
