Film festival curator Vilsoni Hereniko, an award winning playwright, filmmaker and writer who teaches at the University of Hawaii, confirmed the film, “Morning Comes So Soon,” will be featured during the three-day film festival in Honolulu.
“I like the film very much,” Hereniko said. “I think it ıs quite an achievement.”
One of the first feature length films made in the Marshall Islands, it was produced by Aaron Condon and Mike Cruz of Small Island Films and Youth to Youth in Health — two American volunteer teachers at Catholic Assumption High School and a non-profit peer education group. It is the first Marshall Islands-made film to play to an international film festival. Hereniko said the film is scheduled to play on Saturday July 12 at the film festival.
Supported by a small grant from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the film offers a candid look at life in urban Majuro focusing on the twin themes of racism and suicide, both major issues in the country. Students from Assumption High School and the community act in the film.
When “Morning” was initially released in mid-May in Majuro, K&K Corp. Theater three-plex managers had intended to show the movie one night. But so many customer jammed the theater the first night, it ended up playing three times and continued a run of multiple showings nightly for about 10 days.
The influx of people from China and Taiwan following the sale by the Marshall Islands government of thousands of passports in the mid-1990s has sparked widespread anti-Chinese sentiment among Marshall Islanders, but the attitudes are expressed in verbal and occasional physical assaults on Chinese but rarely in open forums. “Morning” for the first time has put racism out in the open and also puts a mirror up for Marshallese to look at their families and the problem of suicide which has caused the deaths of hundreds of young men since the 1970s.
