The inaugural Wailuku Film Festival launches June 18 - 21, 2026. Brian Kohne, the Maui Film Commissioner for the Maui Film Office, hopes the event exposes youth on Maui to what might be their first film festival.
Students who have not attended a festival don’t know what they are, he said. The Wailuku Film Festival is complementary to the Hawai’i International Film Festival and focuses especially on Hawai’i makers, he added.
Submissions are now open for films. The early-bird deadline, which allows submissions with discounted entry fees, is Jan. 20. For the early-bird deadline, fees are $20 for students and $35 for other creators. Submit a film. Categories include Hawai’i, Indigenous Voices, Watersports and Student Shorts.
“The Hawai’i category is very broad,” he said. “It could be a movie made in Hawai’i. It could be a movie made about Hawai’i. It could be a filmmaker from Hawai’i who is out making movies somewhere else in the world.”
The announcement of the Wailuku Film Festival follows the end of the Maui Film Festival, which filed for bankruptcy in May after 25 years of events, as reported by Maui Now.
“Wailuku has historically been the gathering place on Maui,” Kohne said.
Soon, Wailuku will be home to three venues, which are within walking distance of each other. Those spaces include the ʻĪao Theater, which celebrates its 100th anniversary next year, as well as The Naylor, a new black box theater that opened last week, he said.
“Within a year or two, there's going to be a new space a block up the street that serves the hula world and the cultural world,” Kohne said. “Within a short period of time, the Wailuku Film Festival is going to have three viable venues, all walking distance from businesses and restaurants, so makers come in and we hang out, and Hawai’i residents, of course, really benefit, especially our youth.”
Kohne’s family moved to Wailuku from Detroit, Michigan, when he was five years old. He graduated from Henry Perrine Baldwin High School before he “went off to the big world” to study film, music and photography at San Jose State University, Kohne said.
“I would have probably sought to stay in the state of Hawai'i,” Kohne said. “There were no educational paths at that time. Not just on Maui, even on O'ahu.”
Kohne is the music producer for Barefoot Natives and Willie K, as well as an independent motion picture writer, director and producer, who worked on films such as “Get a Job” and “Kuleana,” later renamed “Maui,” according to IMDb. He also is a professor at the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawai’i Maui College, where he teaches comedy, screenwriting and storytelling.
“We're cranking out talent,” he said. “These kids are wonderful, and then when they graduate and they commit to this, their only viable option right now is to move to the Mainland — not even O’ahu, because things are stumbling here. I'm motivated to take another step and see what we can do to improve industry opportunities on Maui — for Maui residents and for others.”
Sign up for the festival’s newsletter and get updates on Instagram or their website.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
