Jalena Keane-Lee and Hawane Rios- Standing Above the Clouds

Harita and Haley interview Jalena Keane-Lee and Hawane Rios.Jalena Keane-Lee (Director, Producer, Cinematographer) is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing through an intersectional lens. She was named a 2023 Adobe x Sundance Woman to Watch, and is the recipient of the Gotham Documentary Fellowship, Creative Culture woman filmmaker fellowship, Wyncote Fellowship and NeXt Doc Fellowship. Jalena is the winner of Tribeca Through Her Lens 2020 and DocPitch 2022. Her short films have streamed on POV and Criterion Collection, played at over 50 film festivals, and won best short at LA Asian Film Festival in 2020 and the Jury Award at Sundance in 2023. Jalena co-founded Breaktide Productions, an all-women-of-color production company that has won two Cannes Lion awards for branded content. Jalena is currently working on her first feature-length documentary which participated in the 2022 Sundance Edit and Story Lab. When the massive Thirty Meter Telescope is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, an uprising of kiaʻi (protectors) in Hawaiʻi and around the world dedicate their lives to protecting the sacred mountain from destruction. Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, her latest documentary, Standing Above the Clouds explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions. We are also privileged to have Hawane, one of the protagonists in this film, join us for this interview.  Hāwane Rios is a Mauna Kea Protector and a singer/songwriter from Puʻukapu, Waimea on the Island of Hawaiʻi. She was raised from an early age in the traditional art forms of chant and dance of her people which created a strong foundation for her passion of music and songwriting. She knows her lineages, cultural traditions, and music, driving her commitment to aloha ʻāina (love for the land) and the collective responsibility to care for and protect Mother Earth. She is the recipient of a 2020 Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Contemporary Album of the Year and has won multiple Big Island Music Awards.For the past twelve years, Rios has stood on the frontlines of the Protect Mauna Kea Movement and alongside her family as a petitioner in the court system in resistance to the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope. Her outreach work has taken her to many places and has connected her to many different justice movements rooted in standing up and speaking up for the rights of the land and water. She continues to support the efforts of the movement through her educational outreach work with the non-profit organization, Mauna Kea Education and Awareness, and through her work as a musician, dancer, and chanter.Standing Above the Clouds is showing in Christchurch on 28 and 30th June, Auckland and Wellington on 14 July, and virtually 15-31 JulyJalena Keane-Lee (jalenakeanelee.com) (Hāwane Rios – Artist – Songwriter (hawanerios.com))Standing Above the Clouds - Documentary Edge (docedge.nz)