Cane Fire: Screening and Q&A with Director Anthony Banua-Simon

Presented by Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film. Co-sponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU.

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The Hawaiian island of Kaua’i 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 Kaua’i 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 Native Hawaiian and working-class residents as “extras” in their own stories.

Following the screening, Banua-Simon will be in conversation with writer and A/P/A Institute at NYU Visiting Scholar Minh Nguyen.

Accessibility note: This venue has a no-step entry. The elevator runs to all levels. DCTV’s restrooms are all wheelchair-accessible and gender-neutral with appropriate signage with ADA compliance. All public spaces within the building including our cinema, classrooms, and event spaces are wheelchair-accessible. Please contact cinema@dctvny.org with any questions or access needs.