Our Watch List: Films to Look Forward to This Fall
Get tickets and mark your calendars for these upcoming films and shows we’re excited to see from HRFF, HIFF and more.
Editor’s Note: Our fall film lineup, first published on Sept. 7, has been updated to include screenings from the full Hawai‘i International Film Festival program.
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Fall is film festival season, an exciting time for those of us who live for art and breathe stories. With the Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival (HRFF) on this month and Hawai‘i International Film Festival (HIFF) in October, there’s plenty to look forward to in addition to the series and movies coming to theaters and streaming platforms—but only so many hours in a day. Our editorial team pored over the screening programs and marked these films and shows for our must-watch list, and there might be something here for you too.
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool
This documentary follows surf instructor Bull Kotter, AKA Bully, as he pivots from running his surf school business, shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, to teaching the underserved and homeless keiki of Lahaina how to surf. Now, in the aftermath of the Maui fires, the feel-good film is a record of the Lahaina that was.
Bully continues to mentor and nurture Lahaina’s youth despite being homeless himself. The filmmakers are working to add a coda about the community’s resilience and collecting funds to use the film to raise awareness of Lahaina’s recovery needs. If you’d like to help, you can donate to the Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool Film Impact Initiative. –AL
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
FREE, Thursday, Oct. 12, 6:30 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Ward
SEE ALSO: Kāko‘o Maui: Things to Do on Maui
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Fancy Dance
An Indigenous woman goes missing, so her sister, Jax, sets out with her niece, Roki, to find Roki’s mother. Jax is played by Lily Gladstone, who will be portraying Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, one of the most fascinating books I read this year. Based on a true story, Killers is about Indigenous people of the Osage tribe dying under mysterious circumstances. I can’t wait to see that when it comes out next month, and Fancy Dance sounds like it could have similar themes, exploring the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people—especially women. —KV
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Saturday, Oct. 14, 3:15 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
My Partner
Keli‘i Grace’s My Partner has been on my radar all summer, and I’m excited to finally see it on the closing night of the HRFF. The BL genre is almost untapped in the West, but it has been exploding in the Philippines and Thailand beyond its origins in Japan. The fact that this drama was filmed in Lahaina with local rising talent makes it that much more special to see. –TO
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Monday, Oct. 16, 5:45 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival
Sunday, Sept. 10, 2 p.m. at Doris Duke Theatre (Honolulu Museum of Art, 900 S. Beretania St.)
Tickets sold out
SEE ALSO: Honolulu’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival Returns
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Mondays
There are 20 films on my HIFF list this year, but one that stands out in particular is Ryo Takebayashi’s Mondays, where the workers of a creative agency are stuck repeating the same week over and over. I’ve never seen Groundhog Day (I know) and, honestly, Russian Doll annoyed me, but the premise and description are enticing, so I’ll give it a shot—I need to see more good comedies! –KV
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Monday, Oct. 16, 6:30 p.m., and Wednesday, Oct. 18, 6 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Enter the Clones of Bruce
This film takes us through the rise of iconic actor/martial arts master Bruce Lee and his sudden death at age 32 in 1973 just as he’d achieved global fame. Born in San Francisco and raised in British Hong Kong, Bruce Lee became a pop icon with his fast-paced mix of martial arts and inspiring tales of good triumphing over evil. Yet years later, his new movies kept being promoted, which I recall thinking was strange at the time. Now, we know why. Some in the film industry sought to capitalize on his fame, and this documentary explores the surreal “Bruceploitation” that followed. –RD
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Saturday, Oct. 14, 11 a.m., and Thursday, Oct. 19, 3:30 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Aum: The Cult at the End of the World
This documentary covers the 1995 nerve gas attack on a subway in Tokyo that people may also be familiar with from Haruki Murakami’s book, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, and other retellings. Cults and terrorism are such captivating topics as we try to understand how things like this can happen. Almost 30 years later, what new perspectives will this add? I’m looking forward to finding out. –KV
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Thursday, Oct. 19, 8:15 p.m. and Friday, Oct. 20, 3 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Join or Die
The playfully menacing title of this documentary refers to the benefits of belonging to organizations, clubs, community groups. Social scientist Robert Putnam delves into the decline of social connection in the U.S. in his “Bowling Alone” research, which found more people bowling but not in organized leagues. I’m intrigued to find out how he links the lack of social gathering to the chaotic civic unraveling of recent decades. Joining a club might cut in half our chances of dying in the next year? Sign me up! –RD
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Thursday, Oct. 19, 5:15 p.m. and Friday, Oct. 20, 3 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
The Round Up: No Way Out
I’ve been a big fan of Don Lee since he stole all the scenes in Train to Busan, so I’m excited that there’s a whole “Don Lee in Focus” section of HIFF. And even more hyped for The Round Up: No Way Out, the third of the series starting from The Outlaws (2017), one of my favorite films of all time. You don’t need to see all the movies to have context for this one. Lee’s character is a hard-hitting detective chasing down criminals—in this case, a drug operation—who typically solves his cases with fists and snark. And best of all, Don Lee is going to be there in person for an after-film conversation! –AL
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Saturday, Oct. 21, 8:15 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
Photo: Courtesy of Hawai‘i International Film Festival
The Boy and The Heron
The Closing Night Film for the Hawai‘i International Film Festival and perhaps the most highly anticipated of the 2023 program, The Boy and The Heron made headlines not only for being a Hayao Miyazaki film but also for being released in Japan with no promotional marketing whatsoever. People went in with absolute faith in Studio Ghibli, and the movie set a box office record. Now, we do have a trailer, but I know some people want to go in blind to enjoy the film. If that’s you, read no further.
The story follows Mahito, a boy who follows a talking heron into another world to seek out his lost mother. “Where death comes to an end, life finds a new beginning,” reads the trailer. Along with Studio Ghibli’s signature hand-drawn, breathtaking animation, you can likely expect philosophical themes tossed with heartbreaking and uplifting moments. –AL
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Saturday, Oct. 21, 8 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Ward
Surf Girls Hawai‘i
Five young Native Hawaiian women—Moana Jones Wong, Ewe Wong, Maluhia Kinimaka, Pua DeSoto and Brianna Cope—train and compete to win a spot on the WSL Championship Tour. This four-part docuseries pays witness to their struggles and successes as they strengthen their resolves and strive to live up to the Hawaiian surfing legacy. In addition to the great rush of seeing girls doing the extraordinary, the show promises a Native Hawaiian lens of surfing, a sport that originated in the Islands before taking off internationally. –AL
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Past Lives
You know you’re in for it when just the trailer is hitting you. Past Lives follows the reunion of childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung, 20 years after Nora emigrated from South Korea to the U.S. In two minutes, the trailer captures the joy and sadness of seeing an old friend again and the regret that comes with growing apart and wondering what might have been. Honestly, I did not feel emotionally prepared to see this in a public theater. I’ll choose a day when I can cozy up in bed, tissue box by my side, and let this film wash over me and wring me out. –AL
Streaming on all major platforms Sept. 18
Past Films
Cora Bora
I loved Megan Stalter in her role as nepo baby turned chaotic personal assistant in the TV series Hacks, so I’m excited to see her sink her comedic chops into her first leading role in Cora Bora. Stalter seems perfectly matched with director-actor Hannah Pearl Utt (Before You Know It) in her turn as Cora, a 30-something musician trying to make it big in L.A. who returns home to Portland in attempt to win back her long-distance girlfriend, unleashing all sorts of unhinged messiness along the way. –BT
Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival
Saturday, Sept. 9, 7 p.m. at Doris Duke Theatre (Honolulu Museum of Art, 900 S. Beretania St.)
Flora and Son
As a mom of little boys, seeing the relationship this mom has with her son in the beginning of the movie is my worst nightmare. It looks like the train-wreck relationship you hope to not have with your teenager. However, Flora seems super relatable, as she’s just doing the very best she can, and most times she feels like she’s falling short (the joys of parenthood!). Of course, she stops at nothing to find that thing that will help her create a strong bond with her child. It helps that there’s also a little romance involved in the plot—with the ever-adorable JGL (Joseph Gordon Levitt), no less! –JC
Hawai‘i International Film Festival
Wednesday, Sept. 20, 7 p.m. at Consolidated Theatres Kāhala
