Hawaiian and Pacific Library Resources : Video

Over 1,000 years ago, the islands of Polynesia were explored and settled by navigators who used only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds for guidance. In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed across a vast ocean area, larger than Europe and North America combined.

A contemporary look at Hawaiian people, politics, and resistance in the face of the indigenous population's systematic erasure under U.S. laws, economy, militarism, and real estate speculation.

This film is a joyful celebration of the history and endurance of Hawaiian Pidgin that blends the traditional Hawaiian language with the English of the missionaries and plantation masters, along with a bit of Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Tagalog, and the all-purpose idiom, “da kine.” Despite occasional efforts to purge it from schools—it's long been considered a language of social inferiors and gangs, with the potential to lower school test scores and hamper job seekers—Pidgin (declared an official language by the U.S. Census Bureau) persists in the island state's multiethnic society. Pidgin has its champions such as writer and occasional rapper Lee Tonouchi, author of the seminal literary work Da Word, who stages his wedding in Pidgin (not an easy achievement), as well as a collective of enthusiasts known as Da Pidgin Coup, and a duo attempting to translate the Bible into Pidgin (the New Testament equals “Da Jesus Book”).

Discover the truth behind the scandalous 1930s rape and murder case involving a Navy wife, her society mother, Clarence Darrow, and five nonwhite Hawaiians that shook the island paradise and exposed the racial tensions roiling beneath the surface.

This hour-long documentary is a provocative look at a historical event of which few Americans are aware. In mid-January, 1893, armed troops from the U.S.S. Boston landed at Honolulu in support of a treasonous coup d'etat against the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen Lili'uokalani. The event was described by U.S. President Grover Cleveland as "an act of war." Stylized re-enactments, archival photos and film, political cartoons, historic quotes, and presentations by Hawaiian scholars tell Hawaiian history through Hawaiian eyes. Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation was broadcast on Hawai'i Public Television in 1993 during the centennial year of the overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani, a landmark year in the Hawaiian movement for sovereignty and independence. In that same year, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution admitting the illegal taking of Hawai'i and formally apologizing to the Hawaiian people

The award-winning 1996 film, Happy Birthday Tūtū Ruth, directed by Ann Marie Kirk, profiles Ruth Makaila Nakagawa Kaholoaʻa starting with the celebration of her 90th birthday. Tūtū Ruth was was born and raised in Waipiʻo and Waimanu valleys in the Kohala Mountains on Hawaiʻi Island. She grew taro for most of her life while raising 13 children mostly by herself.

Shamed by her village for being poor and the daughter of a convicted thief, Viki is inspired and haunted by the Warrior Woman from her island's mythology. The lush tropical beauty of Rotuma contrasts with the stifling conformity of island culture as Viki fights for justice, freedom, and the clearing of her father's name. This compelling narrative is the first of its kind to feature a predominantly Rotuman cast and contain dialogue spoken for the most part in the Rotuman language.

In The Ways Of The Ancients, She Found A Hope For The Future.

A small Maori village faces a crisis when the heir to the leadership of the Ngati Konohi dies at birth and is survived only by his twin sister, Pai (Academy Award® nominee* Keisha Castle-Hughes). Although disregarded by her grandfather and shunned by the people of her village, twelve-year-old Pai remains certain of her calling and trains herself in the ways and customs of her people. With remarkable grace and courage, Pai summons the strength to both challenge and embrace a thousand years of tradition in order to fulfill her destiny.

He has given the world a new vision of the Pacific and of New Zealand as a Pacific nation. But New Zealanders are only just waking up to the huge international reputation of novelist Albert Wendt. Growing up in Samoa, Wendt was 13 when he boarded a banana-boat to travel to New Zealand on a scholarship to the New Plymouth Boys’ High School. This led on to Victoria University, friendships with writers such as James K. Baxter and later Witi Ihimaera, and a love affair with a fellow student that inspired Wendt's best-selling novel Sons for the Return Home. Dividing his life between New Zealand, Samoa, and other parts of the Pacific, he has written many novels (including two turned into feature films) and been the forerunner of today's renaissance in Pacific arts in New Zealand – represented in this documentary by dance group Black Grace, film-maker Sima Urale, painter John Pule and rap artist Tha Feelstyle, among others. This rich chronicle of Wendt's life and times is directed by Shirley Horrocks. The New Oceania combines in-depth research, extensive travel, striking archival footage, and the personal story of a charismatic individual who offers a fresh perspective on this country. It also includes dramatisations of Wendt's vivid story-telling. In both Samoa and New Zealand, Wendt's work has generated controversy while inspiring the young. The title of the documentary comes from his essay encouraging all Pacific cultures to embrace change and accept the need for dissent ('Without it, our cultures will drown in self love!').