Producer greenlights film about Princess Kaiulani

The $9 million movie is scheduled to be filmed on Oahu this fall

A part-Hawaiian girl with no acting experience will portray Hawaii's Princess Kaiulani in a $9 million movie scheduled to be filmed on Oahu this fall, the film's producers announced yesterday.

Kaimana Paaluhi, 12, a part-Hawaiian girl from Oahu, will play the young Kaiulani in the still-unnamed motion picture.

"Much like the princess, Kaimana is passionate, lovely and haunting," said Marc Forby, writer and director of the film, in a news release. Paaluhi has never acted, but was chosen because of her ethnicity, Forby said.

Q'Orianka Kilcher, 17, who portrayed Pocahontas in "The New World" (2005), will play Kaiulani from 17 to her death at 23.

Kilcher, a Quechua-Huachipaeri Indian of Peruvian heritage and Swiss-Alaskan, was raised partly in Hawaii and at age 15 won the motion picture National Board of Review's "Breakthrough Performance" award for her portrayal of Pocahontas.

Matador Pictures and Trailblazer Films, co-producers of the movie, will film for six weeks on Oahu beginning September or October.

Born Oct. 16, 1875, Kaiulani, who was of Hawaiian and Scottish descent, sought to restore the Hawaiian monarchy after its overthrow in 1893. She fell ill while horseback riding on the Big Island and died in 1899.