Screenshot: BRUDDAH IZ
When I first met Brian Keaulana, I was overwhelmed by his presence, the way he stood with such warm authority — at once both imposing, yet inviting all the same. We met at Makaha on the west side of Oahu. Brian greeted me and The Inertia Managing Editor Alex Haro near the bed of his truck, where he awaited our help to unload an enormous supsquatch he had tied down to a trailer hitched to the back. With him on one side and Alex, me, and another on the opposite, we pulled the oversized paddleboard towards the beach. And then, as we divvied up life jackets and paddles, he promoted our individual safety and collective well-being with the highest priority, only interrupted when his mouth split with a shit-eating grin with how excited he himself was to steer our overinflated ship. Afterwords, he immediately extended an offer for us to join him and his father (surf pioneer and Mayor of Makaha Buffalo) and mother and uncles and aunties and nephews and nieces — some by blood; others, not — for a post-surf grill-out. He was exactly how I had imagined him and his ilk, from Buffalo to uncle Duke and other legendary Hawaiians.
I never met Israel Kamakawiwo’ole or IZ, but I assume his presence would be similar: powerful and commanding yet gentle and caring. Above all, I view IZ in many ways as I view Brian and Buffalo and Duke – all carrying an enormous, uninhibited love and passion for their native Hawaii, doing best by their fellow islanders. And that love and passion is what BRUDDAH IZ: A Movie intends to capture.
But in order to make this documentary a reality, Director Jennifer Akana Sturla needs your help. And to get said help, she is an employing a Kickstarter campaign, putting together a short to offer a glimpse to the man behind the music as well as the people he surrounded himself with.
The thing about IZ is that while his music invokes this sense of serenity that most associate with paradise, he sang it from a place torn between pride and pain in the wake of the local advent of American rule.
“Hawaii was not a better place,” a friend explains, speaking to the time following its annexation. “And not just not a better place for Hawaiian, it wasn’t a better place for anybody. He’s crying that. He’s not singing. And anyone who has ever heard that live version, or seen him perform live, you know that he’s right on verge of tears when he is singing it. I believe it was probably true every time he sang it.”
Now it is time to look past the music and see that pride and pain.
Per the crowdfunding effort:
This film is a unique opportunity for the IZ story to reach a vast majority who are not aware that there are a Hawaiian people, those who don’t know that “Hawaiian” isn’t an entree with a pineapple ring on top. IZ emerged from the Hawaiian Renaissance, a movement of cultural resurgence in the 1970s, as both a musical and socially conscious voice. His music is still playing now – on the radio, Pandora, iTunes playlists – at the same time a new generation of Hawaiians, educated in Hawaiian language, history, and environment, are coming of age with social media in hand and when many of the issues that concerned IZ are more pressing today.
It would be truly unique for a film that illuminates the truth about IZ and his Hawaiian experience to reach the audiences of all the mainstream studio films and network television shows created from an outsider’s perspective. A film that reaches all the people who know IZ’s international hit song would be a film that touches and informs millions and millions of people. Today, platforms such as Kickstarter are an avenue for independent filmmakers to raise money and build an audience at the same time.
In the spirit of IZ, we’ll leave you on a good note… a happy note.
To support BRUDDAH IZ, head on over to the Kickstarter campaign.
