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chris's blog

Pick the winners of the Academy Awards and win a dinner for two at Halekulani!

Posted January 25, 2012 - 10:13am by chris

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced yesterday. As part of the excitement leading up to HIFF's Oscar Night America gala on February 26th, we're holding a "Pick the Winners" contest that's open to everyone, 18 and older. The prize is a dinner for two at the Halekulani Hotel's Orchids restaurant (up to a $200 value). Entries for the contest start today and conclude the day before the Academy Awards are hosted.

Enter HIFF's "Pick the Winners" Contest today!

The Golden Globes are finished, now we're gearing up for Oscar Night America!

Posted January 16, 2012 - 10:41pm by chris

I hope you were watching the Golden Globes this past weekend, since Hawaii walked away with the prize for the Best Motion Picture - Drama category for THE DESCENDANTS, with George Clooney also winning the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama category. We showed many of the top nominated films here at HIFF last fall, and we're eagerly awaiting the release of the nominations for the Academy Awards, which will happen on January 24th.

Also of note is that THE ARTIST (EuroCinema Hawaii) won the Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical category, and also Best Original Score and Best Actor for Comedy/Musical by Jean Dujardin. Not many people had heard about this film when it played at HIFF, but with the exposure from the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards we're sure you'll get another chance to see it in Hawaii.

Some other HIFF shown nominated films and actors/actresses which have a good shot at an Oscar nomination are: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Tilda Swinton) and THE KID WITH A BIKE (Belgium), also from our EuroCinema Hawaii selection.

HIFF 31 Survey Winners Announced!

Posted December 13, 2011 - 2:42pm by chris

Many of you took a survey either online on in person while you were at our festival, and two lucky people who entered have won 6 tickets each to our upcoming Spring Showcase, held in April 2012! Congratulations to Donna Tamasese and Michael Morimoto!

HIFF Surveys are a great way for us to keep improving the Festival, and they help us to continue to offer exciting, cutting edge films, panels, and transmedia programs. At the same time, the information gathered in our HIFF surveys is vital for our fund raising capabilities, as we use the data acquired for grant applications and proposals. A big MAHALO to everyone who took a few minutes of their time to fill out one of our HIFF Surveys this year, we greatly appreciate your assistance!

Photos from HIFF 2011

Posted November 21, 2011 - 1:44pm by chris

Here is a selection of photos highlighting various events that happened during the 31st Hawaii International Film Festival presented by Halekulani.

Opening Press Conference at RumFire, Sheraton Waikiki.
 Opening Night Party at Halekulani

Justin Cravalho, Luke Aguinaldo, Warren Daubert - HumanHand, designers of this year's HIFF Key Visual.
Featured bartenders at a private Disaronno Amaretto event during the festival.

Meet the Filmmakers reception at RumFire #1
Meet the Filmmakers reception at RumFire #2

An Afternoon With Hawaii 5-0 - Alex O'Laughlin, Daniel Dae Kim & Grace Park
An Afternoon With Hawaii 5-0, held at Halekulani. HIFF executive director Chuck Boller, and programmer Anderson Le with cast and crew from Hawaii 5-0.

Actress Tamlyn Tomita with Chairman of the HIFF Board of Directors, Owen Ogawa and his mother.
Vilcek Foundation Executive Director Rick Kinsel (center) with 4 filmmakers from the American Immigrant Filmmakers on Profile section.

Award winning filmmakers Adam Pesce (Splinters), Prashant Bhargava (Patang), Ruslan Pak (Hanaan) with a representative from awards sponsor Tiffany & Co.
The annual Governor's Reception, held at Washington Place, where the HIFF awards were announced this year.

HIFF award winning filmmakers and Masato Harada (director of festival hit Chronicles of My Mother) at HIFF's closing press conference.
Visiting filmmakers enjoying the festival's closing party at Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch and Crab restaurant.

Alexander Payne, director of HIFF's Closing Night film THE DESCENDANTS, and Kaui Hart Hemmings, writer of the novel the film was based on.
Honolulu mayor Peter Carlisle and HIFF executive Direcor Chuck Boller present Alexander Payne with this year's Vision in Film award.

Audience Awards for HIFF 31, presented by Hawaii News Now

Posted October 26, 2011 - 2:43pm by chris

The audience awards for this year's festival, presented by Hawaii News Now, go to:

Narrative Feature: THE DESCENDANTS directed by Alexander Payne
Documentary: ALOHA BUDDHA directed by Bill Ferehawk, Dylan Robertson
Short: TSUYAKO directed by Mitsuyo Miyazaki

HIFF is coming to Hilo, October 28-30

Posted October 24, 2011 - 3:03pm by chris

The weekend after the Hawaii International Film Festival presented by Halekulani concludes on O'ahu, there will be screenings at the Palace Theatre in Hilo. There is one new film for Hilo, not playing on O'ahu. It is FAMILY OF THE WA'A, a documentary about a group of people who paddled a canoe across 1750 miles of the Hawaiian archipelago. Here's the schedule: 

 

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28
7:00 PM - MY KOALOHA STORY

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29
1:00 PM - PACIFIC SHOWCASE SHORTS
4:00 PM - FAMILY OF THE WA'A
7:00 PM - ALOHA BUDDHA + MINKA

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30
12:00 PM - GUZAARISH
3:00 PM - THELMA
6:00 PM - SUBJECTIVE EXPRESSIONS

HIFF 31 Award Winners

Posted October 19, 2011 - 2:39pm by chris

Last night at the Governor's Reception, the festival awards were presented to these filmmakers. First, the NETPAC Award was given to HANAAN, directed by Ruslan Pak. The NETPAC Award is presented to an Asian director for their first or second feature film.

The Halekulani Golden Orchid for Best Documentary was given to SPLINTERS, directed by Adam Pesce. Finally, the Halekulani Golden Orchid for Best Feature was given to PATANG, directed by Prashant Bhargava. A new screening of PATANG was added on Sunday, October 23rd at 8:45 PM.

The Audience Choice Awards presented by Hawaii News Now will be announced on Monday, October 24th.

Upcoming screenings for award winning films

HANAAN - Fri, Oct 21 - 3:45 PM
SPLINTERS - Thu, Oct 20 - 4:00 PM
PATANG - Sun, Oct 23 - 8:45 PM *New Screening*

New HIFF Films Announced!

Posted October 10, 2011 - 2:02pm by chris

HIFF has added three new films to the program for this year's festival. THE TSUNAMI AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOM is a documentary about Japan's recovery from the tsunami earlier this year and is in our GREEN SCREEN section. The second added film is BUTTER, a comedy about butter carving in the midwest starring Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, Alicia Silverstone, and Hugh Jackman. It plays with the short film STEVE, about a man who comes to tea. The cast of STEVE includes Colin Firth & Keira Knightley.

THE TSUNAMI AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOM: Sat, Oct 15 at 3:30 PM  /  Sun, Oct 23 at 11:45 AM
BUTTER + STEVE: Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 10:00 PM

 

A new screening of THE LAST RONIN (SAIGO NO CHUUSHINGURA) has been added Sun, Oct 23 at 7:45 PM. Several additional screenings on the last day of the festival will be announced after the awards show on Tuesday, October 18th.

Win tickets to Jackie Chan's "1911", opening this Friday

Posted October 3, 2011 - 2:06pm by chris

Jackie Chan's 100th film, 1911, is opening in Honolulu this Friday, October 7th. Thanks to the film distributor, Variance Films, HIFF has four pairs of tickets to 1911 to give away. We're holding a quick contest, and the winners will be announced in the morning on Thursday, October 6th.

The Contest: To qualify to win a pair of tickets, entrants will need choose the correct answer to 2 trivia questions about Jackie Chan and 1911. To enter, please completely fill out this form. View the full blog post or read below for more details about 1911.

Update Oct. 6: The winners have been announced! Jae Cheung and Judy Francese won vouchers to Pearlridge 16; Dael Hayama and Brandon Wong won vouchers for the Kahala Theater.

*NOTE*: 1911 is being released theatrically, and is not part of this year's Hawaii International Film Festival lineup.

Tickets are now on sale for members, general public sales start October 3rd.

Posted September 29, 2011 - 5:08pm by chris

Tickets are now on sale for HIFF Ohana members and ticket sales for the general public start Monday, October 3rd. Our box office is located inside the Regal Dole Cannery Stadium 18 & IMAX lobby. You can stop by in person or call 808-447-0577 from 11am - 6pm from Sept 29 to Oct 12, and from 11am to the start of the last show during the actual festival dates (Oct 13-23).

Tickets are $12 general public, $10 senior/student/military/children, $8 HIFF members or groups of 10 or more. There are some exceptions: THE FRONT LINE and THE DESCENDANTS (opening & closing night films) and AN AFTERNOON WITH HAWAII 5-0 are $20, HIFF members $15.

Printed program guides are now available at the HIFF office, Regal Dole Cannery Theater, and are being distributed to many places on O'ahu, including all Starbucks and L&L locations. In addition, you can look at our E-Program Book here.