Death is an intimate experience, and how we lay our loved ones to rest, varies between cultures. KAPU: Sacred Hawaiian Burials sheds light on the ongoing battle by Native Hawaiians to protect burial sites across the state and the iwi, or sacred bones, that are within them.
Related Movies
Forests (2022)
In a dark, ambiguous environment, minuscule particles drift slowly before the lens. The image focuses to reveal spruce trees and tall pines, while Innu voices tell us the story of this territory, this flooded forest. Muffled percussive sounds gradually become louder, suggesting the presence of a hydroelectric dam. The submerged trees gradually transform into firebrands as whispers bring back the stories of this forest.
American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawai'i (2003)
American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawai’i shows the survival of the hula as a renaissance continues to grow beyond the islands. With the cost of living in Hawai'i estimated at 27 percent higher than the continental United States, large numbers of Hawaiians have left the islands to pursue professional and educational opportunities. Today, with more Native Hawaiians living on the mainland than in the state of Hawai'i, the hula has traveled with them. From the suburbs of Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area, the largest Hawaiian communities have settled in California, and the hula continues to connect communities to their heritage on distant shores.
The Road Forward (2017)
The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.
Q'eros: The Shape of Survival (1979)
Exploration of the way of life of the Q’eros Indians of Peru, who have lived in the Andes for more than 3,000 years.
Moananuiākea: One Ocean, One People, One Canoe (2018)
From 2019 Maui Film Festival This powerful documentary celebrates the historic Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage that connected countless individuals and communities from around the globe. A voyage that also represented the fulfillment of the vision of Nainoa Thompson and his contemporaries, the passing of the mantle to the next generation of kanaka maoli who will retain the skills of their ancestors and perpetuate this tradition for generations to come so the legacy of Hokulea can last for 1,000 generations.
Sacha Runa Yachay (2007)
The elders of the Kichwa community of Sarayaku preserve the history of their land for the youngest. They save the knowledge of their traditions against modernity and the invasion of their territory.
Tóxico, Texaco, Tóxico (2007)
The imagination of history in Ecuador never thought that oil, “its redeeming hope”, discovered in the Lago Agrio No. 1 well, was going to mean the beginning of the worst environmental catastrophe on the planet. Thirty years of operation and exploitation of the Texaco company, forever transformed the rivers and estuaries, the forests and the life of the indigenous communities in the northern Amazon of Ecuador.
Now Is the Time (2019)
When internationally renowned Haida carver Robert Davidson was only 22 years old, he carved the first new totem pole on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century. On the 50th anniversary of the pole’s raising, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps easily through history to revisit that day in August 1969, when the entire village of Old Massett gathered to celebrate the event that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit.
Surviving Columbus (1992)
This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Americas from the perspective of the Pueblo Peoples.
Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film (2017)
The film follows Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martinez and Kade L. Twist, who put land art in a tribal context. The group bring together a community to construct the Repellent Fence, a two-mile long ephemeral monument “stitching” together the US and Mexico.
Kumu Hina (2014)
A transgender Native Hawaiian teacher inspires a young girl to fulfill her destiny of leading the school's male hula troupe, even as she struggles to find love and a committed relationship in her own life.
Cry Rock (2010)
The wild beauty of the Bella Coola Valley blends with vivid watercolor animation illuminating the role of the Nuxalk oral tradition and the intersection of story, place and culture.
Ainu Neno An Ainu (2021)
This documentary started as part of a photography project about the indigenous Ainu population in northern Japan, portraying people from tightly knit communities. They feel deeply connected by their culture and tradition. With gorgeous pictures, the directors explore how different generations of Ainu reflect on their identity after centuries of oppression.
Bancoco (2023)
A New Yorker journeys to the jungle in the Darien Gap of Panama to reconnect with an indigenous tribe he met and photographed 20 years ago. Their reunion highlights the profound power of photos and the human connection that transcends cultural barriers.
Out of State (2017)
Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.
E Haku Inoa: To Weave a Name (2013)
A mother and daughter, estranged by divorce and mental health issues, reconnect through patience, understanding, and their a shared appreciation of their Native Hawaiian heritage.
Train leaves two towns (2016)
In Ecuador, in a single day, the train passes from the mountainous Andes to the tropical coast. The roads were built between 1861 and 1908 to connect the country. Until this date, the two regions live as separate countries, although the roads connect them in less than a day. The film is an observational work that talks about space and collective memory.
Nihi (2003)
Nihi is a film biography of Titus Kinimaka, one of the last remaining professional big-wave riders of pure Hawaiian descent. As a boy, he won surf contests against those twice his age; by his teens, he was recognized as one of the best surfers to have ever hit the waves. In 1996 at age 41, Titus was named Waterman of the Year by the Hawaiian Lifeguard Association for outstanding rescues as a lifeguard. He has spent over twenty years spreading aloha spirit, traveling the world as an ambassador for surfing and Hawaiian culture
My Village in Nunavik (1999)
Shot during three seasons, Kenuajuak's documentary tenderly portrays village life and the elements that forge the character of his people: their history, the great open spaces and their unflagging humour. Though Kenuajuak appreciates the amenities of southern civilization that have made their way north, he remains attached to the traditional way of life and the land: its vast tundra, the sea teeming with Arctic char, the sky full of Canada geese. My Village in Nunavik is an unsentimental film by a young Inuk who is open to the outside world but clearly loves his village. With subtitles.