An Instant Classic
Eddie and Myrna Kamae’s eighth documentary film features three legendary Hawaiian women
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Eddie and Myrna Kamae
Treasures in 1979, she told Myrna, ‘Now, you take care of him.’
“They’ve done so much for the culture, and I’m so happy that they carried on the tradition,” Eddie admits.
The Kamae family takes care of others and passes on traditions by showing their documentaries so people can learn. The first documentary they completed in 1988 was Lia: The Legacy of a Hawaiian Man. The film about Eddie’s music teacher Sam Lia Kalainaina won an award at the HIFF.
“After finishing that film, there were so many more things I wanted to do,” explains Eddie. He works on whatever comes to mind.
“Sometimes I stay up late at night or wake up early in the morning,” he notes. “I always write down my thoughts, and sometimes things come to my mind in my sleep.”
Since that first 1988 documentary, the couple completed six more films before they founded the non-profit Hawaiian Legacy Foundation (http://www.hawaiianlegacy.com) in 2000 so they could secure grants. The collection of all their work is called the Hawaiian Legacy Series. Myrna serves as the executive director of the organization and coordinates extensive school showings of the documentaries, which come with additional study material, translations and worksheets. Copies of all films they’ve made so far have been donated to the schools, which fits in perfectly with Myrna’s former jobs as a production assistant for the state Department of Education in educational television and as a voter education employee in the Office of the Lieutenant Governor.
Dennis Mahaffay shows Eddie
Kamae a shot in the viewfinder
“I do whatever needs to be done,” Myrna says. “Write proposals, set up crews, work on promotions. Eddie is the guiding light. He has a lot of insight and the Hawaiianness that makes the difference.”
In continuing with their goal to share the information in their creative works, starting Nov. 8, a DVD of their HIFF Silver Maile Award-winning documentary Words, Earth, and Aloha: The Source of Hawaiian Music will be available.
Eddie and Myrna have more films already in the works including Lahaina: Changing Times to be released next year. The following years’ documentaries include Feeding the Soul and My Teachers and Me.
Keepers of the Flame: The Cultural Legacy of Three Hawaiian Women plays at the Hawaii Theatre at 6:15 on Oct. 27 during the Hawaii International Film Festival.
Pukui, Luahine and Kanakaole were born on the Big Island, so there are also showings of Keepers of the Flame on Nov. 3 in Hilo, and Nov. 5 in Kona.
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