The Hawaii International Film Festival is offering a free online screening of a film with Hawaii Island connections, featuring a local community leader and actress, today and tomorrow only. And HIFF is also offering an online discussion with the director today at 4 p.m.
August at Akiko’s, by director Christopher Makoto Yogi, features Hakalau resident and owner in real life of Akiko’s Buddhist Bed and Breakfast, Akiko Matsuda. Matsuda describes herself as “a 3rd generation Japanese woman, born in Honolulu in the 40’s, long before freeways, shopping malls, email, cell phones and hand held devices. Akiko is a writer of children’s books, student of tai chi, and zen meditation, and makes some “mean” French toast.. She is storyteller, hostess, housekeeper, and loves using her weed whacker and leaf blower to maintain the garden, citrus orchard and breadfruit grove in the backyard. ” Matsuda is president of the Wailea Village Historic Preservation Community and hosts the annual New Year’s Wailea Mochi Pounding event. Her Buddhist Bed and Breakfast is a charming inn that headquarters the event, which draws hundreds.
The HIFF describes August at Akiko’s as a mystical film that lives in the seams between dream, reality, and memory with a time-signature all its own. Armed with just his suitcase and a sax, cosmopolitan musician Alex Zhang Hungtai (Dirty Beaches, Last Lizard) returns home to the Big Island of Hawai‘i having been away for nearly a decade. Amidst possessed sax solos and brooding strolls, Alex stumbles upon a Buddhist bed & breakfast run by a woman named Akiko (Akiko Masuda). Hungtai’s wild sax and Akiko’s Buddhist bells form the base for a rich soundtrack that wraps around the audience like a sonic web surrounding the unexpected new friendship.
To see a promo for August at Akiko’s, click here.
To watch the film, courtesy of the Hawaii International Film Festival, click here.
To join a discussion with director Christopher Makoto Yogi, today at 4 p.m. HST, join the Zoom meeting:
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82980264239?pwd=dXJpc0dWUnRabXVidWdzQTA0TzNxUT09
Meeting ID: 829 8026 4239
Password: 885489
Below from the web site for Akiko’s Buddhist Bed and Breakfast:
