OUT OF STATE

Directed by Ciara Lacy

Asian American Panorama / USA / 2017 / Documentary / 79 mins / English, Hawaiian with English subtitles / DCP

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OUT OF STATE

UltraStar Mission Valley
Friday, Nov 10, 2017 7:50PM

Description

Official Selection, 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival

Due to overcrowding in the islands, the Hawaii Department of Corrections contracted the medium-security, for-profit Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona to house approximately 2,000 of its men. As one might imagine, shipping inmates out of state places enormous emotional and financial burdens on family members and the inmates themselves, many of whom may never have visitors.

Thousands of miles from home, and against the transactional coldness of the prison industrial complex, the inmates have built an exile community that embraces their native heritage, which may not seem remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that the Hawaiian language was banned in Hawaii from 1896 to 1978, creating a generational knowledge gap now being closed by these men in the unlikeliest of places. “I had to go to the ends of the earth and hit bottom to really find out who I was,” says David, one of the subjects of the film.

A feature directorial debut by Native Hawaiian Ciara Lacy, OUT OF STATE ventures into the Arizona desert and across oceans of sadness and displacement to find a Hawaiian “home.” –Wilda Wong

Co-Presented by: USD United Front Multicultural Center

Preceded By

MOTHER’S DAY

Elizabeth Lo, R.J. Lozada / USA / 2017 / 8 mins
Children of inmates take overnight buses to talk, laugh, and spend a few rare hours with their mothers.
Precedes: OUT OF STATE