Running more than two hours, the documentary Moananuiākea: One Ocean, One People, One Canoe tracks the Hōkūle‘a’s epic Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, which traversed more than 41,000 nautical miles to 23 countries, 150 ports, and eight UNESCO Marine World Heritage sites. Filmmakers followed the entire journey, from the training of the first crew and the departure from Hilo, Hawai‘i Island, through the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, to the canoe’s homecoming in Honolulu. Adventures and bonds were created that could not have been foreseen at its inception: Children were born; the last surviving founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Ben Finney, passed away a month prior to the voyage’s completion in June of 2017. The voyage of Hōkūle‘a, and its story of oceanic adventure, indigenous resilience, and environmental activism, was retold around the world.
“Eight of us worked on the voyage,” says lead producer Nā‘ālehu Anthony, who co-produced the film with Bryson Hoe and Maui Tauotaha under local production company ‘Ōiwi TV, of which Anthony is the co-founder and CEO. The ‘Ōiwi TV documentarians provided live updates and web streaming, and shot, edited, and cut materials for international news pieces. The documentarians worked through perilous conditions, the type familiar to readers of Hemingway and Melville. The film includes several scenes of waves breaking over Hōkūle‘a’s twin hulls as midshipmen brace through intemperate seas. “In the first voyages of Hōkūle‘a, everything was on film,” Anthony says of the canoe’s earliest outings in the 1970s. “In 2014, when we started this documentary, we spent most of our time figuring out what they did in the film days, how to keep things dry.”
The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in Honolulu in 1973. It was created, in part, to test legends of deep-sea Pacific voyages recounted by story, chant, and legend and taught by specialized sects of the community, as well as competing theories of transoceanic voyages made by Polynesians prior to Western contact. In the intervening centuries since Western contact, many traditional forms of canoe-building and navigation had been lost. The Polynesian Voyaging Society spawned a cultural resurgence of Pacific identity. Deep-sea voyaging canoes have been built throughout the Pacific and on all the major Hawaiian islands since Hōkūle‘a, and thousands of sailors and navigators have since learned to guide them on perpetual voyages of discovery.
Those who participated in Mālama Honua have been forever changed. “After the world premiere screening I noticed that the orchestra pit, the one in front of the stage, that’s the same size as the deck of Hōkūle‘a,” Anthony says, of its 62 feet by 10 feet space. “That’s all the room we had. As filmmakers, we had to get new angles, new shots. When we started, we were somewhat novices at this.”
As a Pacific odyssey, the Mālama Honua journey was the first of its kind. Ports presented range of experiences to the crew members. Some were sparsely populated anchorages in which the crew readied the canoe and connected with a host to get something to eat. Other ports were global cities in which elaborate cultural festivals were attended by thousands, replete with offerings, speeches, dignitaries, and the presentation of gifts.
Two-hundred-forty-five sailors manned Hōkūle‘a on various legs of the journey. Hōkūle‘a needed to be repaired several times during the voyage, and was dry-docked for months in New Zealand and South Africa. The film shows what happens in intimate moments at sea between teachers and students, and the emotional cultural exchange that happened everywhere the crew went. Women star in most of these scenes. Apprentice Navigator Jenna Ishii and Captain Ka‘iulani Murphy, who are both educators on land, first appear in the film training in classrooms and off of Honolulu Harbor as men speak platitudes of oceanic navigation. After nearly half a decade at sea, they are transformed into seasoned, capable navigators and community leaders, and they are running the meetings.
“This isn’t just a film for canoe lovers, this is a film for everyone in Hawai‘i,” Anthony says. “This is an opportunity for us to come together. We see it as an extension of the voyage. We hope to screen the film at the ports that supported us, to go everywhere the voyage went.”
Running more than two hours, the documentary Moananuiākea: One Ocean, One People, One Canoe tracks the Hōkūle‘a’s epic Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, which traversed more than 41,000 nautical miles to 23 countries, 150 ports, and eight UNESCO Marine World Heritage sites. Filmmakers followed the entire journey, from the training of the first crew and the departure from Hilo, Hawai‘i Island, through the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, to the canoe’s homecoming in Honolulu. Adventures and bonds were created that could not have been foreseen at its inception: Children were born; the last surviving founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Ben Finney, passed away a month prior to the voyage’s completion in June of 2017. The voyage of Hōkūle‘a, and its story of oceanic adventure, indigenous resilience, and environmental activism, was retold around the world.
“Eight of us worked on the voyage,” says lead producer Nā‘ālehu Anthony, who co-produced the film with Bryson Hoe and Maui Tauotaha under local production company ‘Ōiwi TV, of which Anthony is the co-founder and CEO. The ‘Ōiwi TV documentarians provided live updates and web streaming, and shot, edited, and cut materials for international news pieces. The documentarians worked through perilous conditions, the type familiar to readers of Hemingway and Melville. The film includes several scenes of waves breaking over Hōkūle‘a’s twin hulls as midshipmen brace through intemperate seas. “In the first voyages of Hōkūle‘a, everything was on film,” Anthony says of the canoe’s earliest outings in the 1970s. “In 2014, when we started this documentary, we spent most of our time figuring out what they did in the film days, how to keep things dry.”
The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in Honolulu in 1973. It was created, in part, to test legends of deep-sea Pacific voyages recounted by story, chant, and legend and taught by specialized sects of the community, as well as competing theories of transoceanic voyages made by Polynesians prior to Western contact. In the intervening centuries since Western contact, many traditional forms of canoe-building and navigation had been lost. The Polynesian Voyaging Society spawned a cultural resurgence of Pacific identity. Deep-sea voyaging canoes have been built throughout the Pacific and on all the major Hawaiian islands since Hōkūle‘a, and thousands of sailors and navigators have since learned to guide them on perpetual voyages of discovery.
Those who participated in Mālama Honua have been forever changed. “After the world premiere screening I noticed that the orchestra pit, the one in front of the stage, that’s the same size as the deck of Hōkūle‘a,” Anthony says, of its 62 feet by 10 feet space. “That’s all the room we had. As filmmakers, we had to get new angles, new shots. When we started, we were somewhat novices at this.”
As a Pacific odyssey, the Mālama Honua journey was the first of its kind. Ports presented range of experiences to the crew members. Some were sparsely populated anchorages in which the crew readied the canoe and connected with a host to get something to eat. Other ports were global cities in which elaborate cultural festivals were attended by thousands, replete with offerings, speeches, dignitaries, and the presentation of gifts.
Two-hundred-forty-five sailors manned Hōkūle‘a on various legs of the journey. Hōkūle‘a needed to be repaired several times during the voyage, and was dry-docked for months in New Zealand and South Africa. The film shows what happens in intimate moments at sea between teachers and students, and the emotional cultural exchange that happened everywhere the crew went. Women star in most of these scenes. Apprentice Navigator Jenna Ishii and Captain Ka‘iulani Murphy, who are both educators on land, first appear in the film training in classrooms and off of Honolulu Harbor as men speak platitudes of oceanic navigation. After nearly half a decade at sea, they are transformed into seasoned, capable navigators and community leaders, and they are running the meetings.
“This isn’t just a film for canoe lovers, this is a film for everyone in Hawai‘i,” Anthony says. “This is an opportunity for us to come together. We see it as an extension of the voyage. We hope to screen the film at the ports that supported us, to go everywhere the voyage went.”
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