Moloka'i Bound

Alika Maikau's Moloka'i Bound feels like what it is - namely a calling card short that ripe for expansion to feature film. His attention to detail and ear for dialogue bode well for the longer version, which made the Black List's newly inaugurated Indigneous List that aims to spotlight indigenous film and TV makers while giving an authentic voice to stories of Native peoples.

This short snippet, which also won an Oscar-qualifying award at ImagineNATIVE, observes a conversation between young teenager Jonathan (Austin Tucker) and an older man, Kainoa (Holden Mandrial-Santos) who we come to learn is his father and desperate to forge some sort of reconnection - with the circumstances around this taking shape as the short progresses.

Maikau uses the simple steps of a school to his advantage to emphasise distance between his two characters - with Jonathan initially sitting on a wall and Kainoa at a lower level - before they both sit on the steps, but are still divided by a handrail.

On some level, both are trying to impress - Kainoa has brought snacks, Jonathan is full of bravado about smoking - and Maikau crafts naturalistic  dialogue, resisting the urge to lay the emotion on thick and keeping the emphasis on the curiosity the two have about one another instead.

Although it doesn't quite have the fully realised shape of a short film - presumably because it is one nicely worked piece intended for a bigger whole - it shows Maikau has full command of even this smallest of spaces, with both actors also putting in engaging performances that feel rooted in a wider reality.