About this Event
Presented by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU. Co-sponsored by the Center for Collaborative Indigenous Research with Communities and Lands, Nā `Ōiwi NYC, NYU Native American & Indigenous Students Group, NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, and NYU Center for Media, Culture, and Communication.
Through the intergenerational stories of women from three Native Hawaiian families, Standing Above the Clouds traces the decades-long movement to protect Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawaiʻi. The documentary film follows teacher and community organizer Kumu Pua Case and her two daughters — artist-activists Hāwane Rios and Kapulei Flores — as they stand for the sacred mountain.
As they face opposition and arrests, they are joined by a community of kiaʻi (protectors) who have dedicated their lives to preventing the desecration of Mauna Kea. Case reflects, “We are no different than Native people everywhere around the world standing for their mountaintops, for their waters, for their land bases, their oceans and their life ways.” Winner of the Bill Nemtin Award for Best Social Impact Documentary (HotDocs International Film Festival), Standing Above the Clouds is an intimate journey through the women’s lives both on and off the mountain, and explores the physical and emotional toll of sustaining a grassroots movement.
The A/P/A Institute at NYU is thrilled to welcome back the film’s director, producer, and cinematographer Jalena Keane-Lee and artist Hāwane Rios for this special screening and discussion, moderated by Professor Lou Cornum (NYU Department of Social & Cultural Analysis).
Accessibility note: This venue is accessible via elevator. If you have any access needs, please email [email protected].
Jalena Keane-Lee is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing through an intersectional lens. She was named one of DOC NYC’s 2024 40 Under 40 Filmmakers to Watch, and a 2023 Adobe x Sundance Woman to Watch. Keane-Lee co-founded Breaktide, an all-women-of-color video production company, and is the winner of Tribeca Through Her Lens 2020 and DocPitch 2022. Her short films have streamed on POV and Criterion Collection, played at over fifty film festivals, and been awarded best short at the Los Angeles Asian Film Festival in 2020 and the Jury Award at Sundance in 2023. Keane-Lee’s directing style is guided by a politic that is rooted in the liberation of all people and radical hope that a better world is not only possible but up to all of us to create. Her first feature-length documentary Standing Above the Clouds premiered at HotDocs in 2024 where it won Best Social Impact Documentary. It has gone on to play at over twenty film festivals and won Special Mention for Best International Director at Doc Edge 2024, Best International Cinematography at Film Ambiente, Best Feature Documentary at the 2024 San Diego Asian Film Festival, and Best Made in Hawaiʻi Feature Film at the 2024 Hawaiʻi International Film Festival.
Lou Cornum is an assistant professor of Native American Studies in the NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. Recent publications include "Way We Move" in Temporal Territories: An Anthology of Experimental Indigenous Cinema and "Seizing the Alterity of Futures" in the History of the Present Journal. As part of the Pinko collective, they contributed to After Accountability: The Critical Genealogy of a Concept, published by Haymarket Books. Cornum is a member of the Navajo Nation.
Image: Still from Standing Above the Clouds. Film protagonist Hāwane Rios stands facing off with police while holding the kiʻi of Ku, god of war.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Film Center, 36 East 8th Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
