Press Release 12/9/09

Othila Media Productions

HAWAII A VOICE FOR SOVEREIGNTY – HONOLULU PUBLIC PREMIERE SCREENING

Honoring Cast and Native Hawaiian People

Sunday, December 13 at 5:00 PM

University of Hawaii, Spalding Auditorium

Honolulu, HI

University of Hawaii Cinema Series, by Don Brown;

Sponsored in part by Hawaiian Studies, UH and Pasifika Foundation Hawaii

US 2009 84 minutes

RECEPTION at 7:00 PM

Second screening at 7:30 PM

This documentary film, directed by photojournalist Catherine Bauknight, explores the culture of the Native Hawaiians and their connection to the land. At the forefront of the film are social, economic, and ecological issues that have developed in Hawaii since the takeover by the U.S. in 1893, revealed in the voice and participation of the grassroots indigenous people and scholars such as author, Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask and Professor Kaleikoa Ka’eo, Senator Kalani English, Bumpy Kanahele, and Clifford Nae’ole, Ramsay Taum, Kahu Hanalei Colleado, and Guy Aina The goal of the documentary is to raise awareness of the issues faced by the Native Hawaiians that threaten their ancient and environmentally sustainable culture. Key contributors to the film and understanding of the Hawaiian culture through music and chants are Charles Ka’upu, Cyril Pahinui, George Kahumoku, Ke’eaumoku Kapu, Lono, Richard Ho’opi’i, Skippy Ioane, Willie K, and Makana, Kamuela Rodrigues,Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu, Ulalena: The Music of Michel Cusson and Luc Boivin.

The film was recently awarded Best Documentary Feature Film and Best Environmental Film in the NY International and Independent Film Festival. It was won the Audience Award Best Hawai’i Film at the Maui Film Festival in June, after privately screening at the Capitol Building in Washington,DC in June.

Panel discussion facilitated by Jon Orsorio, following screening. Panel will include Prof. Haunani-Kay Trask and Bumpy Kanahele. Others TBA.

Entertainment by Skippy Ioane, political poet from Big Island.

Bauknight will take this opportunity to recognize those who worked towards a common goal of representing the voice of the Native Hawaiians and their culture, who are in the film from Oahu, Maui, Big Island, Molokai, Kauai, and those and worked behind the scenes for the goal of the film, such as cultural advisors Clifford Nae’ole, Leona Kalima and cultural and historical advisor, Al Harrington. The film has empowered the people of Hawaii to take a look at their own history and to do their own research to find out more information, according to Wilmont Kahaialii, from Maui.

$5 General Admission / $3 UH Free Parking on Sunday

Further information about the event: Don Brown (808) 223-0130

Film Trailer: www.catherinebaukight.com

email: cbauknight@othilamedia.com

Directions to Spalding Auditorium:

Proceed north on University Ave. two stoplights past Dole St. (Maile Way). Make a right onto the campus. 400 yards past the guard gate, park in the lot on the right at the corner of Maile Way and Farrington Rd. Walk through passage way to the front of the building. Auditorium is on the first floor.

Call to Action by World Can’t Wait Hawai’i:

YOU DON’T END A WAR BY SENDING MORE TROOPS!

PROTEST/SIGNHOLDING

Wednesday, Dec. 2, 4-6 pm

Federal Bldg, Ala Moana Blvd.

Will we be complicit in expanding the war in Afghanistan?

Or will you join thousands across the U.S. who will be in the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday to say: “NOT IN OUR NAME!”

The war on Afghanistan was wrong with Bush launched it. Obama is wrong to expand it.

On Tuesday at 8pm EST Obama will announce his plans to expand the war on the people of Afghanistan.

We must respond! We know that we won’t stop the war, but we CAN and MUST send a message world-wide that there are people living in this country who refuse to be part of Obama’s murderous expansion of the war!

Spread the word everywhere! Announce the protest in your classes and at work. Bring your signs and noisemakers – and your friends and family.

La Ku’oko’a

(Hawaiian Independence Day)

November 25, 2009 from 11am to 3pm

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Bachman Lawn (corner of University Ave and Dole St.), Honolulu, Hawaiʻi

Hui Aloha ʻĀina Tuahine

http://tuahine.wordpress.com/

Hawaiian Independence Day

Faced with the problem of foreign encroachment of Hawaiian territory, His Hawaiian Majesty King Kamehameha III deemed it prudent and necessary to dispatch a Hawaiian delegation to the United States and then to Europe with the power to settle alleged difficulties with nations, negotiate treaties and to ultimately secure the recognition of Hawaiian Independence by the major powers of the world. In accordance with this view, Timoteo Ha’alilio, William Richards and Sir George Simpson were commissioned as joint Ministers Plenipotentiary on April 8, 1842. Sir George Simpson, shortly thereafter, left for England, via Alaska and Siberia, while Mr. Ha’alilio and Mr. Richards departed for the United States, via Mexico, on July 8, 1842.

Timoteo Ha’alilio and William Richards:

The Hawaiian delegation, while in the United States of America, secured the assurance of U.S. President Tyler on December 19, 1842 of its recognition of Hawaiian independence, and then proceeded to meet Sir George Simpson in Europe and secure formal recognition by Great Britain and France. On March 17, 1843, King Louis-Phillipe of France recognizes Hawaiian independence at the urging of King Leopold of Belgium, and on April 1, 1843, Lord Aberdeen on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation that:

“Her Majesty’s Government was willing and had determined to recognize the independence of the Sandwich Islands under their present sovereign.”

On November 28, 1843, at the Court of London, the British and French Governments entered into a formal agreement of the recognition of Hawaiian independence, with what is called the Anglo-Franco proclamation:

“Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the King of the French, taking into consideration the existence in the Sandwich [Hawaiian] Islands of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations, have thought it right to engage, reciprocally, to consider the Sandwich Islands as an Independent State, and never to take possession, neither directly or under the title of Protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed.

The undersigned, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs, and the Ambassador Extraordinary of His Majesty the King of the French, at the Court of London, being furnished with the necessary powers, hereby declare, in consequence, that their said Majesties take reciprocally that engagement.
In witness whereof the undersigned have signed the present declaration, and have affixed thereto the seal of their arms.
Done in duplicate at London, the 28th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1843.
[L.S.] Aberdeen
[L.S.] St. Aulaire”

November 28th was thereafter established as an official national holiday to celebrate the recognition of Hawai’i’s independence. As a result of this recognition, the Hawaiian Kingdom entered into treaties with the major nations of the world and had established over ninety legations and consulates in multiple seaports and cities. The Hawaiian Kingdom became the first non-European nation to be admitted into the Family of Nations, while the Ottoman Empire was the first non-Christian nation to be admitted following the Crimean War.

[Historical background provided by D. Keanu Sai. Mahalo.]