 "Photo: GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY TONY GASKELL")
What would happen if a blonde woman from California stepped into a room full of Hawaiian activists and asked them to talk about their sovereignty as sincerely as possible?
Catherine Bauknight did just that. She made a film about it, too.
Her documentary, “Hawai‘i: A Voice for Sovereignty,” will play this Sunday at the Spalding Hall auditorium. The film is a part of a series that has been going on since Jan. 18, every Sunday at the auditorium.
“Wisdom is the subject matter,” said Don Brown, coordinator for the series. “The point of the series is to show how ancient beliefs and wisdom are starting to impact how we live now.”
Bauknight’s film shows what the ancient Hawaiians believed and how their reverence for the ‘aina shows through today.
“You saw the film ‘Avatar’; that’s exactly what it’s about,” Brown said.
Bauknight experienced some adversity when she began the project. Most of her interviewees just saw a haole woman who knew nothing about Hawai‘i.
“They were reluctant to talk,” Brown said. “Then they realized that she was sincere and persistent.
“What they thought was a drawback – their situation being seen from the outside – was actually a strength,” he continued. “To see (the issue of Hawaiian sovereignty) without anger, with total innocence, is a strong point in the film. It’s not charged, it’s not angry ... it’s just trying to figure out what happened.”
In a video preview put together by Brown, Bauknight said that for many of the people she spoke to, it was their first time on-camera.
“It was such an honest, pure relationship,” she said.
Using the words of the Hawaiian rights activists she had spoken to, Bauknight said, “You cannot talk about our culture unless you talk about our spirituality. And you cannot talk about our spirituality unless you talk about our sovereignty.”
Hawai‘i Senator Kalani English, who is also in the film, said, “The minute the Hawaiian culture is stifled, we become American, we become like any other state, and all is lost.”
Sidebar
Come to the Spalding Hall auditorium this Sunday at 5 p.m.
Tickets are $3 for UH students with validated ID and $5 for general admission.
Parking is free on Sunday.
Expect to see the public, professors, students and a guest speaker before or after the film.
Next week’s film is called “Tapped.” Partly sponsored by Jack Johnson, it immerses itself in the issue of water conservation. There will be a panel discussion.
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