HAWAI`I - A VOICE FOR SOVEREIGNTY FILM WINS AOTEAROA AWARD

WAIROA, AOTEAROA - Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty Has Won the Mana Wairoa Prize in Kahungunu Marae, Nuhaka, Wairoa District at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in Aotearoa (New Zealand.)

This prestigious award recognizes the people who help build awareness of the struggle for indigenous rights and for human rights through film.

The award went to the filmmaker, Catherine Bauknight and all people appearing in the film.

It was presented by Leo Koziol, Director of Wairoa Maori Film Festival, to Bauknight in Pasadena, CA, and Clifford Nae`ole, Cultural Advisor of the film in Maui, via Skype.

Bauknight worked closely with Nae`ole over the four years of filming throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty will now screen throughout Aotearoa with the Maori Film Festival.

The film premiered one year ago in June, privately at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC and publicly at the Maui Film Festival where it won "Audience Award Best Hawai`i Film."

The film also garnered “Best Environmental Film” and “Best Documentary Feature” at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

The films goal is to share the journey of the Native people of Hawai`i, since the illegal takeover by the US in 1893, to sustain their culture, spirituality, and connection to the land.

MAUI PRAISES NEW SOVEREIGNTY FILM

Maui Weekly - June 24, 2009

We all know the story of the annexation of Hawai`i and the arguments for and against sovereignty. We've heard and read about it ad infinitum.

However, Catherine Bauknight's film, Hawai`i, A Voice for Sovereignty, which had its world premiere at the Maui Film Festival this past Sunday, brings new insight.

Bauknight, who is also a world-renowned photographer, has produced a documentary that looks at the story with a fresh view and brings bright-eyed enthusiasm to the telling that makes the entire issue completely comprehensible and compelling....

Her telling of the imprisonment of Queen Lili`uokalani and of the attempt by the plantation owners to exterminate the Hawaiians is
heartbreaking. The photograph of the murderers imported by the plantation owners to hunt down the Hawaiians is chilling....

The consequence of the illegal annexation, according to Bauknight's film, is the subjugation and attempted eradication of the Hawaiian culture. A culture defined by the ahupua`a system, which was destroyed when Queen Lili`uokalani was overthrown.

Since that time, the film says, Hawai`i has been an occupied colony....