Directed by Anthony Banua-Simon • 2020 • United States
The Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi is seen by many as a paradise of leisure and pristine natural beauty, but these escapist fantasies obscure the colonial displacement, hyperexploitation of workers, and destructive environmental extraction that have actually shaped life on the island for the last 250 years. This illuminating documentary 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 musical 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.
Up Next in 21st Century Cinema
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Clara sola
Directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén • 2021 • Sweden, Costa Rica
Starring Wendy Chinchilla Araya, Ana Julia Porras Espinoza, Daniel Castañeda RincónThis revelatory first feature from Nathalie Álvarez Mesén is a mesmerizing portrait of a woman in the process of taking ownership of her body and sel...
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My Architect
Directed by Nathaniel Kahn • 2003 • United States
Louis I. Kahn, who died in 1974, was one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, but he left behind an illegitimate son, Nathaniel, and a personal life of secrets and broken promises. MY ARCHITECT takes us on a heartbreaking yet humo...
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Gramercy Stories
Directed by Joyce Chopra • 2008 • United States
GRAMERCY STORIES is an inspiring look inside a unique residence in Manhattan that provides a safe home for twenty-five gay and transgender teenagers who have experienced violence at home and on the streets. Told from their candid, often witty persp...
