Eddie & Myrna Kamae Films
We have partnered with the University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi to digitize, catalog, and make our films and raw footage available online for education and research. The links below will take you to short clips of the digitized films and raw footage. If you want to purchase a DVD of these films, click here to visit our online store. Currently, all DVDs are free.
Liʻa: The Legacy of a Hawaiian Man
This award-winning documentary celebrates the music and spirit of revered Hawaiʻi island musician and composer Sam Liʻa Kalāinaina (1881-1975). It is also about a place, Waipiʻo Valley, and Liʻa’s life as shaped and nourished by that place. Liʻa perpetuated the tradition of celebrating the beauty of one’s place and memorializing the events of its people. Eddie Kamae, a major force in the revival of Hawaiian music, was among the musicians inspired by Sam Liʻa. In this film, he translated his gratitude and love for Liʻa into a visual song in which music, place, and people find their original harmony.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Listen to the Forest
Listen to the Forest is an award-winning environmental documentary about rainforest preservation. It is about the Hawaiian islands and traditional Hawaiian values and cultural practices that shape our intimate relationship and responsibilities to mālama ʻāina (care for the land). This film is for all ages and emphasizes the powerful connection between Hawaiʻi’s natural history and a rich cultural life. Combining interviews, chants, songs, and hula, this film calls forth an older form of ecological wisdom and inspires us to take better care of the lands we call home.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Kī Hōʻalu: Slack Key The Hawaiian Way
This award-winning film is a moving journey into the beauty and meaning of Hawaiian kī hōʻalu (slack key), a Hawaiian way of making music. Performers and composers reveal how this unique playing style conveys something essential about the Hawaiian spirit and family traditions. Interviews and archival images combine with the music of many virtuoso performers, from the legendary Fred Punahou and Gabby Pahinui to Raymond Kane and Ledward Kaapana, to tell the slack key story from the 1830s to the present. It shows how this music perpetuates family traditions of songs, techniques, and unique string tunings passed from generation to generation.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Words Earth & Aloha: The Source of Hawaiian Music
Hawaiian music has always been much more than entertainment: it has been a primary means of cultural continuity over centuries. This documentary explores the sources of a complex tradition, from early chants and 19th-century gospel influences to the work of composers who flourished between the 1870s and the 1920s. This award-winning film explores the poetry and play of Hawaiian lyrics and the places and features of the natural world that inspired songs still loved and listened to today. The film features some of Hawaiʻi’s most respected cultural advisors and talented performers.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Luther Kahekili Makekau: A One Kine Hawaiian Man
This award-winning documentary shares the untamed spirit of a colorful and controversial Hawaiian man. Known throughout the islands, Luther Makekau was part philosopher and part outlaw, a chanter and a singer, a fighter and a lover, a cattle rustler, a rebel, and a poet. Born on Maui in 1890, he lived nearly a hundred years, shaped by a century of turbulent cultural change.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Hawaiian Voices: Bridging Past to Present
This award-winning documentary honors the role of kūpuna (elders) in preserving Hawaiian culture. It focuses on the legacies of three respected Hawaiian native speakers whose lives bridged the transition from older times into the late 20th century: Ruth Kaholoaʻa, 93, of Hawaiʻi island; Lilia Wahinemakaʻi Hale, 85, of Oʻahu and Molokaʻi; and Reverend David “Kawika” Kaʻalakea, 78, of Maui. Each is a living archive whose memories and perspectives bring the healing wisdom of the past into our present world. A special emphasis in the documentary is the power of the Hawaiian language as a key to cultural connectedness and continuity.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
The History of the Sons of Hawaiʻi
This award-winning documentary tells the story of the charismatic band, The Sons of Hawaiʻi, that helped launch the Hawaiian cultural renaissance. The film spans forty years of Hawaiʻi’s rich musical tradition and offers an intimate look at the group from the 1960s to the 2000s. It highlights their songs, humor, and devotion to a sound that continues to convey something essential about the Hawaiian spirit.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Keepers of the Flame: The Cultural Legacy of Three Hawaiian Women
This award-winning documentary shares the story of three iconic Hawaiian women: Hawaiian historian and author Mary Kawena Pukui, dancer and chanter ʻIolani Luahine, and kumu hula and teacher Edith Kanakaʻole. Their stories reveal the power of their commitment to Hawaiian culture to keep the flame of tradition strong. Each planted seeds of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance, and their influence is still felt today. The lives of these three great women are described through heartfelt interviews with people who knew and were influenced by them.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Lahaina: Waves of Change
Lahaina, Maui, is a place rich in historical and cultural tradition. Once home of Hawaiian royalty, the first capital of the Hawaiian kingdom and a whaling port, Lahaina saw the growth of sugar, pineapple plantations and tourism. In 1999, Eddie Kamae visited Lahaina, to find that Pioneer Mill, the giant of Lahaina’s sugar industry, was closing down. He knew this signaled the end of Lahaina’s plantation era—a simpler, more innocent time that he remembered fondly from his childhood summers with his grandmother—and that it needed to be documented. This film captures the spirit of Lahaina’s multi-ethnic community as they seek to build a future while honoring their colorful past.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.
Those Who Came Before: The Musical Journey of Eddie Kamae
This documentary pays tribute to three remarkable teachers that guided Eddie Kamae: the premier historian and author Mary Kawena Pukui, the “Songwriter of Waipiʻo” Sam Liʻa Kalāinaina, and “Aloha Chant” author Pilahi Paki. Each entrusted Eddie with key pieces of Hawaiian culture and inspired him to understand, perform, and pass that heritage on to the children of Hawaiʻi. Woven throughout is the story of Eddie’s journey of musical self-discovery that turned into a fifty-year pursuit of Hawaiian cultural and musical traditions.
If you want to see the complete film or an entire raw footage tape, contact ʻUluʻulu (click here to do so) and let them know what you want to watch; they will set you up as a researcher and provide you with a temporary streaming link of the tape you request.