HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The history of Hawaii’s state hand gesture will soon be introduced to a new audience worldwide.
“Shaka: A Story of Aloha” has found new life thanks to a new digital acquisition.
It was first released in May 2024 and won the Peopleʻs Choice Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival.
Now it has been acquired by Freestyle Digital Media and will be available via video on demand on several platforms like Apple TV beginning on Jan. 16.
“When something amazing happens when you are born and raised in Hawaii, that’s a reflex that you do,” said Brook Lee, Miss Universe 1997.
Lee and other Hawaii notables are featured in the film flashing the shaka, the unmistakable symbol of Hawaii.
“So in the ‘Shaka’ film, we cover 120 years of Hawaii, new history and it’s literally every single ethnicity, every single portion of the state. It’s truly a melting pot,” said filmmaker Steve Sue, who wrote and produced the film.
Sue says he started researching the origins of the shaka and learned everybody and their uncle has a story about how the shaka came about, usually from their own lineage.
“I realized I needed to represent all of those stories to be fair to anybody who had an idea about where it might have come from,” he said. “So we’re pretty excited about this because not all films get out, and I engineered the film so that it would get out so that it would be interesting to people around the globe.”
Part of this film goes into how exactly the shaka came into being.
One story is a man named Hamana Kalili, in Laie, lost three middle fingers of his right hand in an accident, so when he waved to people, his pinky and thumb stood out.
“So this picture is actually a who dunnit,” Sue said. “It has multiple ways that it could have come about. I am letting the audience decide for themselves. There are some stories that have a significant amount of evidence that would proves that this would be an important story.”
Sue is encouraging island residents to tell their malihini family and friends to watch this movie as a way to connect with the past and use it as a bridge to the future. He believes this could change the world for the good.
“I think that the film has to be sort of an ambassador of Aloha that should that shows who are we from Hawaii and how can the world benefit from watching us in Hawaii,” he said.
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