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Last Hawaiian Sugar

Déjà Cresencia Bernhardt
United States, 2022, 22 min.

In English/Hawaiian/Samoan with English subtitles.
Includes adult language.

Twelve-year-old Nua makes peace with the mixed emotions she has about the land she lives on when she learns the sugar plantation she calls home will be closed forever.

Director's Statement

Set on the last remaining sugarcane plantation farm on Maui, Last Hawaiian Sugar is a rare look into the final days of commercial sugar production, what’s happened to the land due to industrialized farming, and the complicated relationship the islands have with it. NUA, twelve years-old, Samoan, identifies with the world through her intensely spiritual connection she has with the land. She is the product of this immigrant camp that ‘Big Sugar’ brought here to work these fields. On the very day Nua learns the mill is closing she struggles to tell her mother about the abuse she suffers.

Category: Drama.