Directed by grassroots film initiative kekahi wahi (Sancia Miala Shiba Nash and Drew K. Broderick), Hanauma: He Wahi Loli Mau was made in collaboration with local and international artists and filmmakers including: Shinya Akutagawa, Colleen Kimura, Ann Marie Nālani Kirk, Sebastian “Sabby” Sayegh, and Noah Keone Viernes as well as members of the artist collective SnorkelClub (Aiala Rickard, Mele Hamasaki, Josh Tengan, Lise Michelle Suguitan Childers, Richard Hamasaki and Cathie Valdovino).

Shinya Akutagawa’s new animation, Mizu Irazu (2025) revisits a creation story of Hanauma, that of Keohinani and her two suitors, Koko and Uma, as told online at maunalua.net and recorded in Legends of Hawaii: Oahu’s Yesterday (1972) by Pilahi Paki (1910–1985). A voiceover narration by Ann Marie Nālani Kirk accompanies Akutagawa’s dynamic visualizations of the interlocking bay and provides an additional layer of meaning.

A playful and unofficial public service announcement by members of the artist collective SnorkelClub offers four key concepts to visitors, helping raise awareness about how to respectfully, responsibly, and safely visit Hanauma and interact with its many lifeforms. Complementing SnorkelClub’s lighthearted albeit important message, is a sequence of dreamy video recordings from the artist collective’s underwater adventures in the bay set to a new soundtrack by founding member, Aiala Rickard with graphics by Colleen Kimura of TUTUVI.

Sebastian “Sabby” Sayegh’s time lapse video, generated from a 16 hour recording made from Kuamoʻokane, the hill above Hanauma, progresses at an accelerated rate as another origin story of the bay, one described by volcanologists and marine geologists, scrolls quickly across the screen in the style of a horizontal news ticker. Together the crawling words and sped up images introduce a humbling sense of deep time.

Slow portraits of sea, land, and sky by kekahi wahi along with field recordings and soundscapes by Noah Keone Viernes help to weave the various strands of the experimental educational program together into a cohesive multi-textured whole. Repeatedly returning to present-day sights and sounds of the bay throughout the film is a sobering reminder of the ways in which Hanauma persists as a place of continuous transformation.