"It is Being Told Now--Because It is Supposed to Be Told Now": Christopher Kahunahana on Waikiki and Native Hawaiian Storytelling

A film with “a seventeen-day shoot and two+ years of post-production,” Christopher Kahunahana’s long-awaited feature debut Waikiki marks a coming of age for the emerging Hawaiian filmmaking scene. The first completed narrative feature film by a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) filmmaker, Waikiki follows a young indigenous woman, Kea (a mesmerizing Danielle Zalopany), working multiple jobs--hula dancer for tourists, karaoke hostess for drunks, Hawaiian-language schoolteacher for kids--just in...