APAture 2024 Film Showcase
Featuring Jalena Keane-Lee with Angelique Kalani Axelrode, Joyce Keokham, Elaine Nguyen, Sophia E. Perez, and Teao Sense
Curated by David Cao, Lehua Taitano
This film showcase features the works of Teao Sense, Sophia Perez, Angelique Kalano Axelrode, Joyce Keokham, Elaine Nguyen, and featured artist Jalena Keane-Lee. These varied and poignant works explore cultural knowledge and belonging through a variety of different lenses: educational shows and music videos that foreground the lived experience of the AAPI diaspora, reflections on cultural belonging and embodiment, and a documentary that highlights Indigenous Hawaiians’ righteous struggles for self-determination.
The theme for this year is RETURN. From the Palestinian right to return, the call for Indigenous Land Back, and the various migrant histories and struggle for justice in our Pacific Islander and Asian communities, artists consider what the idea of return means to them.
Films
Island Time
Director: Sophia E. Perez
Sesame Street-style Chamoru children’s show shot on the island of Saipan. Starring a Chamorro cast, created by a Chamoru crew and featuring the work of artists from across the Marianas community, Island Time teaches the Chamorro language and valorizes the Chamoru culture by following teenage Fu’una as she embarks on a chaotic and musical journey of cultural self discovery.
Country: US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Runtime: 20m
Keekai – Goal (Official Music Video)
Director: Joyce Keokham
A sporty, flirty music video featuring Filipinx artist, Keekai.
Country: USA
Runtime: 3 mins
Bonus: WYAWYD (Where You At, What Are You Doing?) (Trailer)
Kai Haliʻa (Sea of Memory)
Director: Angelique Kalani Axelrode
In a realm of abstracted and embodied memory, a diasporic Kanaka traces a genealogy of identity through kūpuna (ancestors), ‘āina (land), and ke kai (ocean).
Country: Kingdom of Hawai’i
Runtime: 9m
Jade: Protection & Permanence
Director: Elaine Nguyen
In Elaine Nguyen’s video Jade Protection and Permanence, the artist’s struggle to fit a jade bangle onto her wrist becomes a powerful symbol of navigating tradition and reclaiming cultural identity through familial bonds. Through a simple yet intimate kitchen scene, Nguyen captures the essence of home as a place you choose to belong to, a place where your dad sings karaoke, and where your mom helps you.
Country: USA
Runtime: 4m
Lose Your Mind
Director: Teao Sense
In need of healing? Turntablist / Multi-instrumentalist / Producer Teao Sense and the Audiopharmacy crew offer “Lose Your Mind,” a 9 minute Audio Cinema introducing their 13-track Audio Cinema project, “The Middle Path,” following Teao’s 2018 release, “Moment.” In four chapters, “Lose Your Mind” weaves connections between anxiety, systemic oppression, creativity, indigenous lifeways, and collective liberation, all set to a signature Audiopharmacy soundtrack.
Country: USA
Runtime: 9m
Standing Above the Clouds
Director: Jalena Keane-Lee
When the massive Thirty Meter Telescope is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, an uprising of kiaʻi (protectors) in Hawaiʻi and around the world dedicate their lives to protecting the sacred mountain from destruction. Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, Standing Above the Clouds explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions.
Country: Kingdom of Hawai’i
Runtime: 83m