Richard Hamasaki

After a boxer relocates from New York to Hawai'i, a friendship with his coach expands his awareness of ancestral connection, purpose, and power. Created on the island of O'ahu Hawai'i.

In between growing frustrations toward cleaning up after an endless parade of tourists and reflections on a traumatizing memory, a voice rises from within a soft-spoken Hawaiian janitor down on the sidewalk in Waikiki. This narrative short film is inspired by a collection of poetry published posthumously featuring the work of Kānaka Maoli poet Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (1947-84).

In 1979, Native Hawaiian poet Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (1947–1984) published MANIFESTO [for Concrete Poetry], a sardonic and avant-garde three-page poem that challenged the conventions of language and form. Reexamining the roots of Dadaism and the International Concrete Poetry movement of the 1950s, the film transforms text into a living, dynamic force—an interplay of words, sound, and movement that defies traditional narrative constraints.