There's only a week left to submit your film to be considered to play in this fall's festival! The final deadline is July 6th, and all entries must be received at the HIFF office by Friday, July 10th. Submission Categories, Fees, Rules and Regulations can be found on our website. Click here to submit your film to HIFF.

Students under 18 (high school and younger) may submit their films for free until a deadline of August 1st. Selected student films will play at the Student Showcase during our fall festival.

Shanghai Intl. Film Festival Highlights

I just returned from my 10th official visit to the exciting Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), with whom HIFF has had a partnership for the past 7 years.

As part of this unique collaboration, I brought 5 students with me from the Academy for Creative Media (ACM) at UH Manoa who worked on 2 new short co-productions with their counterparts at Shanghai University School of Film and Television. 5 ACM films were shown with 5 SU films to an enthusiastic audience at SIFF. Stay tuned for HIFF 2009, when Shanghai University students come to HIFF to screen the 2 Shanghai co-productions, several new SU and ACM short films. HIFF will show the Shanghai University short films for free, so plan to attend.

An annual highlight of SIFF is walking the Opening Night red carpet, part of it this year with HIFF friend Joan Chen. I saw many films from throughout the world, particularly China. We have chosen several of these to screen at HIFF.

A film that stood out was EMPIRE OF SILVER, set in 1899 China, about one of the earliest banking empires in China. This gorgeous period piece stars Hong Kong superstar Aaron Kwok and has been officially invited to HIFF. Check out the attached photo with Director / Producer Christina Yao, and leading actors Aaron Kwok and Hao Lei.

Chuck Boller
HIFF Executive Director

P.S. Take a look at this Rediscovering China TV Show, I was interviewed at SIFF, starting at roughly a minute into this video.

HIFF and Social Media Sites

Here at HIFF, we realize how important social media sites are becoming, so we're participating, and bringing the festival experience to you through these various channels.

Keep up with festival news and updates through Twitter, MySpace or Facebook. See festival photos on our Flickr Page and add your own HIFF related photos to our Flickr Group. Check out trailers from upcoming films on our YouTube page, and see Filmmaker Q&A's and other festival video clips on our Vimeo page.

Hello HIFF Supporters!

The staff of HIFF thought we'd start getting everyone ready for the 29th Annual Hawaii International Film Festival (October 15 - 25) by giving you a sneak peek of two films we will be showcasing. The first film is THE STRENGTH OF WATER. a family drama based in New Zealand. The second is a comedy from Korea called ANTIQUE. Although both films vary greatly from one another, they are two that I would definitely put down on my must watch list.

Minette Ferrer
Assistant Programmer

THE STRENGTH OF WATER

Kimi and Melody live happily in an isolated Maori community until an enigmatic stranger, Tai, arrives, precipitating an accident which forces the twins apart. While others punish Tai, Kimi acts out his heartbreaking loneliness in destructive, angry ways, while looking after the Melody that only he can see. His family is concerned for him, but only Kimi's belief in his sister can save him.

View the trailer

ANTIQUE

Jin-hyuk has money, looks, and charm. He opens a cake shop in order to find the love of his life. He hires Sun-woo, a talented pâtissier who used to like him. They are joined by Gi-beom, an ex-boxing champion, and a clueless bodyguard named Su-young. The four handsome men of ANTIQUE stir up the neighborhood. Unfortunately, their mysterious pasts come to haunt them.

View the trailer

Note: Only 3 days left to take this survey (it ends May 31, 2009)

Did you attend HIFF's recent Spring Showcase film festival in April or use our online schedule? We'd like your feedback, so here's a link to a short survey. Everyone who completes this survey will have a chance to win a bundle of 8 tickets for our 2009 Fall Festival in October. There will be 3 winners, 8 tickets each. These tickets will be good for any film in the fall festival, except Opening Night, Closing Night and Centerpiece.

http://bside.hawaiishowcase.sgizmo.com

Here's a video of Anne Misawa, cinematographer of Treeless Mountain, doing a Question and Answer session after the film on Thursday, April 9th, 2009. She's a professor at the University of Hawaii's Academy for Creative Media (ACM - film school).


Treeless Mountain Q&A Session from HIFF on Vimeo.

We'd like to thank all of our members, sponsors, volunteers, and especially our audience members who came to see our films. We had a lot of excellent films this Spring, and can't wait to bring Hawaii more international film in the Fall. Our Fall Festival dates will be October 15-25, 2009.

We'd like to get your feedback and thoughts about the films you saw at our festival. Please rate and review films on our interactive program guide, or just leave your comments. Did you take advantage of the new 'Schedule Genius' feature this spring? Was the ability to download and print a customized schedule of your own useful to you?

Ma'ili Land: Stories of Hope Q&A Session from HIFF on Vimeo.

This is the Question & Answer session held after the world premiere of Ma'ili Land: Stories of Hope. This is a Big Brothers Big Sisters production, working with kids from the Waianae coast of O'ahu in Hawai'i. BBBS worked with some talented people from the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawai'i to make these two short films and the "making of" featurette.

We are rescheduling our showing of UNMISTAKEN CHILD on Sunday April 5th at 3:30pm to a new time of Monday, April 6th at 8:45pm.

If you have tickets to one of these shows, they can be exchanged for the later show or a different film if you can't make it to the new showtime. Please contact our box office by phone at 808-550-8457, or come in person to the Regal theater lobby box office.

As a way to say mahalo to our great members and dedicated volunteers, we have added a screening of DANCE OF THE DRAGON (shown at our festival last fall) on Thursday April 9th at 12:00 PM (Regal Dole Cannery theaters). This screening is for HIFF Ohana members & volunteers only, not the general public. Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Members, please show your membership card to gain entry to this screening.

DANCE OF THE DRAGON Synopsis:
Tae (Korean heartthrob Jang Hyuk) has always fantasized about becoming a ballroom dancer. He's a natural and completely self-taught, but eventually, the young man realizes there's only one way to take his dancing to the next level - he must leave Korea. His lifelong dream takes him to Singapore where he's able to take lessons from Emi Lim (Fann Wong), a former ballroom dancing champion. Before long, Tae falls deeply in love with Emi. Sadly, the timing just isn't right. Emi is focused on the upcoming national ballroom dancing championships. What's more, Emi's dreadful boyfriend Cheng (Jason Scott Lee) is the jealous type, and a former martial arts champion. As the affection between Tae and Emi grows, Cheng becomes wildly possessive and will stop at nothing to quash the budding romance...
-- Jason Soeda

We unfortunately had to cancel our 2 screenings of GOMORRAH, because of a schedule overlap, the print will not be available. We're looking for a replacement for the two show times that GOMORRAH occupied. GOMMORAH will be opening in Honolulu in early May, so you will be able to see the film then. We have added a new film called BURMA VJ, details about it are listed below.

BURMA VJ (DENMARK - 85min.)
TUE. April 7th | 9:15pm

Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the shaky handheld footage of the DVB, acclaimed filmmaker Anders Ostergaard’s BURMA VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government.

We've just launched our interactive program guide for the 2009 Spring Showcase. Be sure to check this, as it will have any changes or updates moving forward that didn't get into the printed material.

We've added 2 new films to the Spring Showcase lineup!

YAMAGATA SCREAM (JAPAN - 115min.)
SUN. April 5th | 9:15pm

A lovelorn schoolteacher and her class of young high school girls are visiting a rural countryside in search of a shrine rumored to help people find true love. Little do they know that they are about to be caught in the middle of a battle between a zombie samurai and the villagers he is determined to destroy. Stuck in the countryside and with limited cell phone reception, what is this group of unlikely heroes to do against the rage of the undead? YAMAGATA SCREAM is a hilarious comedy-horror film directed by and starring Naoto Takenaka (SHALL WE DANCE, PING PONG, AZUMI).

MA'ILI LAND: STORIES OF HOPE (HAWAII - 25min.)
SAT. April 4th | 11:00am

HIFF is partnering with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Honolulu (BBBS) for a special screening of a film created by ten local kids and their BBBS mentors. MAILI LAND'S STORIES OF HOPE are three short films written, directed and produced by children, ages 11-17, who are part of BBBS's Maili Land project, a transitional housing program on Oahu's Leeward side. Moviegoers will see that the stories these children tell ring true. FRIENDSHIP is the story of one boy who moves into Maili Land, a transitional housing program, and struggles to make friends. A PROMISE tells the tale of another Maili Land family and how their son sees promise in the future. *$5 admission for this screening.