Courtesy of HIFF
The Golden Maile award for feature film goes
to "Spring in my Home Town."

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‘Spring in my Home
Town’ takes best
feature film award

The 18th annual Hawaiian International Film Festival announced last night during festivities at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel the winners of the First Hawaiian Bank Golden Maile awards, The Aloha Airlines Hawaii Film & Video Panorama documentary award, and the PrimeCo Hawaii Audience Award winner.

The Golden Maile awards are given to films that in addition to exhibiting unique artistry and technical excellence, best promote cultural understanding among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and North America. Five feature films and five documentaries out of more than 110 films are nominated and judged by a panel of five international jurors. The winners are:

Feature Film

"Spring in my Home Town" directed by Kwang Mo Lee -- The film takes place in a fictitious village in Korea in the middle of the Korean War. Great human suffering and pain, aggravated by their attendant bedfellow poverty, characterize this dark period in Korean history with neighbors pitted against neighbors in the name of ideology. Although set in 1952, the film hones in on a very specific aspect of the human condition.

Documentary

"Nadya's Village" directed by Motohashi Seiichi -- In 1987 the nuclear power station in Chernobyl exploded, spilling harmful radioactive pollution. Due to strong winds, the radioactive fallout contaminated the neighboring Republic of Belarus, making it unlivable.

Nadya's Village chronicles six families who decided to remain in the evacuated Dudichi Village in the Republic of Belarus. He lived with them through four seasons, finding in the villagers an insurmountable will to survive in an area that they considered home.

Aloha Airlines Hawaii Film
& Video Panorama documentary

"Kahoolawe" directed by David H. Kalama Jr. -- the 57-minute film weaves a complex spiritual, cultural, and historical tapestry of the island that ignited a cross-cultural, cross-generational movement. The video shows Kahoolawe's history from a Hawaiian god to sheep ranch, a bombing target for the U.S Navy, and finally as a flash point for Hawaiian sovereignty. It's told in the Hawaiian language with English subtitles.

PrimeCo Hawaii Audience
Award winners

1. Feature: "The Bird People in China"

2. Documentary: "Hawaiian Voices: Bridging Past to Present"

3. Short Subject: "The Journey of Flapper Jane"