Brookfield Filmmaker's Shot Film to be Recognized at Hawaii International Film Festival

BROOKFIELD, CT — Brookfield resident Olivia Hampson has been recognized for her short film, Phases of Mahina, with an official selection for the 2016 Hawaii International Film Festival. A 16-minute narrative story, Phases of Mahina explores the world of a Hawaiian woman struggling to find herself amid conflicting cultural, economic, and family pressures.

The Hawaii International Film Festival #HIFF2016, is the premiere cinematic event in the Pacific and annually attracts more than 70,000 film enthusiasts from around the state, the nation, and throughout the world.

The idea for Phases of Mahina began in letters exchanged with local Hawaiian children on the Waianae Coast, the western shore of Oahu, where life is not defined by the postcard pictures of Hawaii. Hampson’s sister is a teacher at Waianae Elementary School where the need for qualified teachers is high and improving student performance is a priority. Having her sister on Oahu provided a local base for planning, researching, and executing a film from over 3,000 miles away, and Hampson was drawn to learn more about the Hawaii she hadn’t seen in popular media. “Mahina is a young woman caught between worlds: the past, represented by her interest in traditional arts like making Kapa cloth; the present, in a world that requires her to work as a housekeeper to support herself; and her family obligations, shaped by a life of poverty and survival,” said Hampson. “She constantly has to make choices, and they aren’t always what she wants to do for herself. It all comes to a head in these 16 minutes.”

“This film was the senior thesis for my BFA at Purchase College in 2015,” said Hampson. “Each year the students in our conservatory were required to make a complete production, and the senior project is our ‘calling card’ film. I’m proud of Phases of Mahina, though I have so much more of the story to tell. I’m hoping to make it into a feature-length film.” As a student, Hampson focused on screenwriting, directing, and editing in film and digital formats across narrative, documentary, and experimental genres. Early in her studies, Hampson’s interest in mythology began to factor into her scripts. “My first college piece was Endymion, which drew from the classic Greek myth and from John Keats’s poem. I love working with a cultural myth to shape a storyline, and did that in several projects while at Purchase.” Phases of Mahina was showcased at the Jacob Burns Film Center and the Film Society at Lincoln Center in spring 2015. Hampson’s documentary chronicling the life of a woman in drug recovery, Never Jumping Back, was featured in the Passage Gallery at Purchase College.

Hampson’s research and art continue to be shaped by mythology and culture. Over the past year, she was a graduate research student at Cardiff University in Wales, UK, where she earned a master’s degree in Myth, Narrative and Theory. In addition to studying Greek, Welsh, Irish, and Maori myths, Hampson shaped a dissertation on the role women, tourism, and Hollywood films play in mythologizing Hawaiian culture. “I didn’t intend to study Hawaiian mythology when I went to the UK,” said Hampson, “but my professor had some expertise in the subject, and obviously, I had commitment and interest in the topic. This research dramatically expanded my understanding of the tragic past for Hawaiian people, while also giving me so much more insight to my character and the story of Mahina. In addition to meeting potential investors and producers to help make Phases of Mahina into a full-length production, I cannot wait to participate in panels on these issues and see other Hawaiian cultural films at the festival.”

Hampson shot Phases of Mahina in a three-week period in 2015, bringing a small, versatile crew of Purchase College graduates to Oahu, including Milo Finnegan-Money, Jovon Outlaw and Alanna Murray. Her cast was based in Hawaii and features Alex Savusa, Jordan Salud, Justin Chrzanowski, and Julia Fae Sanders. The Hawaiian Actors Group and Joseph Agudo, Brenda Lee-Hillebrenner, and Tyler Bishoff were helpful in local casting. Several of her actors and crew will attend the premiere at HIFF on November 11, 12, 13 on Oahu, November 19 on Kauai, and November 20 on the Big Island.

More about Phases of Mahina and Hampson’s work can be found at phasesofmahina.com.

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36th Annual Hawaii International Film Festival:

November 3-16, 2016

http://www.hiff.org/

Photo: Filmmaker Olivia Hampson