In the Hawaiian language, hewa means “wrong” and noho means “to occupy”. This documentary is a contemporary look at Hawaiian people, politics and resistance in the face of their systematic erasure under U.S. laws, economy, militarism, and real estate speculation. It is a raw, unscripted story that makes critical links between seemingly unrelated industries, and is told from the perspective of Hawaiians.

In October 2008, an unfinished version of Noho Hewa premiered at the Hawaii International Film Festival and received the Award For Best Documentary; in January 2010, the finished film screened at the Pacific International Documentary Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize.

About The Filmmaker

Anne Keala Kelly is a Hawaiian filmmaker who documented the Hawaiian sovereignty movement during the first decade of the 21st century. As a journalist, she has covered Hawaiian and other indigenous peoples issues and the environment, and in 2006-07 she was a Ted Scripps Fellow in Boulder, CO at the Center For Environmental Journalism. She has filed stories from Hawaii, where she lives, as well as Geneva and Katmandu for the Pacifica Network’s Free Speech Radio News.  Her print journalism has appeared in The Nation, Indian Country Today, The Honolulu Weekly, and other publications, and her video reporting has been featured on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Democracy Now!  In September 2008 Keala co-produced “The Other Hawaii” for Al Jazeera. She has an MFA in Directing from UCLA.

Facts about the Military in Hawai’i

  • Hawai’i is one of the most militarized groups of islands in the world.
  • The military controls over 20% of all land in the Hawaiian Island chain.
  • The military population makes up over 11% of the state of Hawai’i, as opposed to less than 1% of the U.S. population.
  • The U.S. Army secretly tested chemical, biological, and deadly nerve gas agents in Hawai’i watershed/forest reserve areas, facts repeatedly denied but later confirmed.
  • Currently 7.1 million live rounds of various weapons are fired annually on sacred Hawaiian lands at the Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) on the Big Island of Hawai’i.
  • More than 400 square miles (250,000 acres) on Hawai’i Island may contain live arms and other military toxins and should be considered military hazard areas.
  • In 1995, there were 405 toxic sites in 122 military facilities statewide.