The Wailuku Film Festival will conclude with two encore screenings of audience-choice-winning films on June 21 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. The festival, which runs from June 17 to 21, will showcase the “Best of Hawaiʻi Short and Feature” at 3 p.m., followed by the “Best Watersports Short and Feature” at 6 p.m. in the Castle Theater. Tickets for each screening are available for $20 and can be purchased online.
The festival aims to celebrate regional storytelling and foster connections between audiences and filmmakers. Organizers say that these final screenings provide a last opportunity for viewers to experience bold local cinema on a big screen while engaging with creators behind the films.
This inaugural event is an initiative of the Maui Film Office, supported by the County of Maui, and seeks to build momentum for a vibrant film industry in the region. The festival features a selection of twelve independent motion pictures across four categories: Hawai‘i, Indigenous Voices, Watersports, and Student Shorts. In addition to film screenings at two venues—the Naylor Theater on Main Street and Historic ʻĪao Theater on Market Street—the program includes industry panels, workshops, training sessions, and several free community events.
Maui filmmakers have a strong presence in this year’s competitive lineup. Notable participants include former University of Hawaiʻi Maui College students Josiah Castillo (“Ka Pō Lōʻihi”) and Tim McHugh (“Obstacle”). Other featured local filmmakers are De Andre Makakoa Takahashi (“Remembering Wai”), Tom Vendetti (“The World Ukulele Program”), Stephen Boeker (“The Safe Space”), Belle Casares (“The Last Puestero”), Matty Schweitzer (“Lāhainā Rising, Finding True North”) as well as Maui High School graduate Austin Alimbuyuguen (“Concrete & Salt”). Their work appears alongside entries from student, emerging, and established filmmakers throughout Hawaiʻi.
Tickets for other Wailuku Film Festival screening blocks are priced at $15 each. The full program is set to be announced when tickets go on sale May 27.
