When asked about his association with the term “new Hawaiian cinema,” young filmmaker Christopher Makoto Yogi laughs. It’s not a budding academic term or an esoteric genre out of the film vernacular. It’s simply how he loosely refers to “a new way of looking at Hawaii through cinema that is different from at least what I’ve seen before,” he says.
Returning to his hometown this weekend for the premiere of his short film, Layover, on the Shore, Yogi recalls, “I saw a disconnect between contemporary Honolulu and the idea of ancient Hawaii. I went to ‘Iolani, which you know is completely Asian. I never took a Hawaiian history class. I grew up thinking about ancient Hawaii as distant, not anything I would be interested in. I remember thinking, ‘I have no connection to this.’ This attitude engenders a real apathy toward your own home. People always talk about, ‘I gotta get out of here, I gotta get away.’”
"Through the Looking Glass" by Jared Yamanuha
Layover, on the Shore, filmed both in LA and Honolulu, on dreamy film stock and über-realistic HD video, is, essentially, a love letter to Hawaii. It’s also Yogi’s attempt to reconcile two different, yet equally relevant Hawaiis: the real, actual Hawaii, where we live, and the imagined paradise with which the rest of the world is acquainted.
It’s precisely for this reason that Layover, on the Shore signals a new type of film, one that engages in the complexities of Hawaii. His film doesn’t seem to fit snugly into either of two categories to which most films about Hawaii belong: it’s not a film that uses Hawaii as a stunt double, so to speak, for other, more exotic locales (think: Jurassic Park and Tropic Thunder), and it certainly doesn’t reduce its characters to caricatures, or make broad generalizations about Hawaii and its people. Yogi seems to be making movies in heretofore uncharted territory, realistic films about us, here and now.
HONOLULU STAR BULLETIN, Aug 2008
Mastering Movies by Katherine Nichols
What does it take to make a film -- of any length? 'Iolani School and University of Hawaii graduate Christopher Yogi knows that a good script is just the beginning. You also need fundraising (begging family members for help), actors (talented people who work for free), crew (friends and classmates available to toil at all hours), equipment (borrowed) and guidance (from mentors in Hawaii's film community). Oh, yes, and lots of passion.