ONE VOICE + LET’S REMEMBER OUR ANCESTORS (TA HASSO I MANAINA)

CAAMFest is thrilled to rescreen CAAMFest Alum, Lisette Marie Flanary’s beautiful and touching documentary, ONE VOICE. ONCE VOICE tells the story of the Kamehameha Schools Song Contest through the eyes of the student song directors. Every year in Hawai‘i, 2000 high school students compete in the Kamehameha Schools Song Contest where young leaders direct their peers in singing Hawaiian music in four-part harmony. The Contest is a unique cultural celebration that has become a major local event, broadcast live on TV, played on the radio, and streamed on the Internet.

ONE VOICE shares the thrill of the competition via the personal stories of the student song directors as they experience the trials and tribulations of competition in this annual high school event. Following the elected student song directors, the audience sees how the tradition creates an indelible experience that builds class unity, instills cultural pride, and builds character. The film also explores their world outside of school by meeting their families, or ʻohana, and revealing their hopes and dreams for the future. Through the stories and lives of these contemporary high school students, the audience will experience Hawaiian culture as it has survived, flourished, and grown through the universal power of music and song.

THIS FILM IS AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AND INCLUDES Q&A.  

About the filmmaker: Independent filmmaker, educator, and hula dancer, Lisette Marie Flanary creates films that celebrate a modern renaissance of the hula dance and Hawaiian culture. She is the writer, producer and director of Lehua Films and her award-winning documentaries, AMERICAN ALOHA: Hula Beyond Hawaiʻi, Nā Kamalei: The Men of Hula, and ONE VOICE have broadcast nationally on public television and shown in film festivals around the world.  Her latest film, TOKYO HULA, the final film in a trilogy of hula documentaries exploring the explosive popularity of hula in Japan, premiered at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival in November 2019. TOKYO HULA was recently awarded the Best Moana Whārahi Films From the Pacific Award at the Doc Edge Film Festival in New Zealand and is also the winner of Best Feature Film at the Made in Hawaiʻi Film Festival in 2021. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and is one of the co-directors of Good Pitch Local Hawaiʻi.

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