CANE FIRE [blu-ray]

CANE FIRE [blu-ray]

Sale Price: $19.99

Price: $34.95
Code: 5375
A film by Anthony Banua-Simon

2021, 90 minutes
English DTS-HD 5.1 & 2.0
Optional English Subtitles

Pre-order: Ships Februalry 11, 2025



    Synopsis

    The Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi is seen as a paradise of leisure and pristine natural beauty, but these escapist fantasies obscure the colonial displacement, hyper-exploitation of workers and destructive environmental extraction that have actually shaped life on the island for the last 250 years. Cane Fire critically examines the island’s history — and the various strategies by which Hollywood has represented it—through four generations of director Anthony Banua-Simon’s family, who first immigrated to Kauaʻi from the Philippines to work on the sugar plantations. Assembled from a diverse array of sources—from Banua-Simon’s observational footage, to amateur YouTube travelogues, to epic Hollywood dance sequences — Cane Fire offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast Indigenous and working-class residents as "extras" in their own story.


    Special Features

    - Audio Commentary track with director Anthony Banua-Simon and producer Mike Vass
    - Theatrical Trailer
    - Booklet featuring an essay by writer and programmer Emerson Goo



    Film Reviews

    "An indispensable watch, Banua-Simon’s first feature focuses on the island of Kauaʻi and the history of its exploitation as a colony, which endures under the guise of statehood."
    -Carlos Aguilar, The Wrap

    "[A] tale as old as America: vicious colonialism, greedy capitalism, rampant racism, and the erasure of local histories for exploitative ends."
    -Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com

    "Through original and deftly assembled archival footage, Anthony Banua-Simon's debut documentary feature CANE FIRE considers the long arc of white, corporate economic & cultural pillaging of Hawaii."
    - Patrick Dahl, Screen Slate

    "A necessary corrective to the perception of Hawaiian identity that diagnoses the problem of representation in pop culture through the filmmaker’s own deeply personal lens."
    -Eric Kohn, Indiewire


    Trailer


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