Historic and previously unseen footage shot by the late musician and filmmaker Eddie Kamae for his “Listen to the Forest” documentary will be available to the public online through the efforts of ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi to preserve, digitize, and catalog archival footage from the making of 10 award-winning documentaries by Kamae and his wife, producer Myrna Kamae.

The work is debuting online to commemorate what would have been Kamae’s 90th birthday on August 4, and to celebrate the completion of the “Listen to the Forest” digitization effort. Kamae, recipient of a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, was a noted musician who began producing films to document and preserve authentic Hawaiian culture. When he passed away in January 2017 the Los Angeles Times remarked Kamae was “one of the most influential Hawaiian musicians in the last half-century and a filmmaker who painstakingly documented the culture and history of the islands.”

The complete descriptive catalog of “Listen to the Forest” and short streaming video clips of newly digitized footage can be found at the ʻUluʻulu website starting tomorrow.

More about “Listen to the Forest”

“Listen to the Forest” was part of the Hawaiian Legacy documentary series released between 1988 to 2007. The 1991 film is about the biodiversity of Hawaiʻi’s rain forests and the unique relationship of reverence existing between Hawaiʻi’s native people and its native landscape. In total, more than 33 hours from 84 videotapes of raw footage and interviews from the making of “Listen to the Forest” have been digitized and preserved by ʻUluʻulu.

The effort is the result of a March 2016 Preservation and Access Partnership between ʻUluʻulu and the Hawaiian Legacy Foundation to make the documentaries’ archival footage available to the public after it is preserved, cataloged and digitized. The Hawaiian Legacy Foundation was created by Eddie and Myrna Kamae to help perpetuate the cultural heritage of Hawaiʻi through music, film and video, educational programs, community outreach and archival work.

Work continues on preserving and digitizing the entire Hawaiian Legacy Foundation collection of nearly 1,000 videotapes housed at ʻUluʻulu. Researchers registered with ʻUluʻulu may view the full-length footage of interviews, traditional chants, and original songs and dances, upon request.

For more information regarding the Hawaiian Legacy Foundation, call (808) 951-7316 or visit the Hawaiian Legacy Foundation website.

—By Greg Wiles