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[{"type":"text","text":"Now, let's all enjoy a hamster enjoying an omelette..."}]

Smile 26 6 13

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026</title>

Now, let's all enjoy a hamster enjoying an omelette...

Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026

 Now, let&#039;s all enjoy a hamster enjoying an omelette...

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Aloha Spirit

It is not every day that Chilean and Hawaiian culture find themselves at the heart of a film. But that is exactly what is at play in the short film “Pilina,” written and directed by the Chilean American filmmaker Carolina Espiro, who is also an actress in several Hawaiʻi-based television shows.

The film’s producer is Jana Park, who calls Mānoa home. When asked to describe the story in just three words, she picked: heartfelt, hilarious and groundbreaking.

“You don't see a lot of Chilean and Hawaiian culture together,” Park told Aloha State Daily. “It’s really cool because it's rooted in a true story.”

Espiro and Park spoke with ASD about the short film, which follows the story of a 70-year-old Chilean seamstress who joins a hālau and finds joy and sisterhood.

It is a senior coming of age story, Espiro added.

“She completely reinvents herself — reconnects to who she was — and kind of blossoms after finding hula,” she said.

Espiro, who moved to the U.S. from Chile when she was 2 years old, has been an actress in several Hawaiʻi-based television series, including “Rescue: HI-Surf” and “Magnum P.I.” 

the American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women

, a tuition-free program for emerging filmmakers. The program counts 

poet Maya Angelou and actress Cicely Tyson

“This project reflects the depth of pilina — connection — between people, cultures and generations,” said Kumu Hula Chase Keoki Wang of Hālau Nā Mamo O Panaʻewa in a written statement. “Manu [Carolina] is the first in our hālau to ʻūniki hoʻopaʻa [graduate as drummer/keeper of chants] … so she understands the importance that stories like this are told with care, intention and a true understanding of the ʻike and responsibility that comes with hula.”

Espiro’s narrative debut was the short film “The Avon Lady,” which won 12 awards. She also directed a music video for four-time Grammy winner 

But she got the idea for this film right before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This film has kind of been a long time coming,” Espiro said. “I am a writer/director, transitioning from a 20-year acting career, but I actually started out as a dancer.”

The actress and filmmaker was a dance major in college.

“Chile has a very interesting relationship with Polynesian culture with 

 and all of that,” she said. “It was always ingrained in us a love for Polynesian dance. When we were growing up, my parents and I would go to Hawaiʻi a lot. I would watch the hula, and I'd be like: ʻI'd love to do that, but there's no way I can, because I'm not Hawaiian.’” 

At her 10-year college reunion, Espiro caught up with a friend from Hawaiʻi who was an assistant teacher at a hālau. That friend explained how hula is a kuleana, or responsibility, to carry on a lineage and culture, and 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Espiro joined. Her mother followed."}]

“We started to realize how much we had missed not having our family around — 

,” she said. “And how much we were getting that back being in hālau, being surrounded by children. And how everyone's called auntie. In Chile, you're called tía. And how food bonds people — and music — and people gathering around, harmonizing over guitar. It just all came back.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The experience inspired this film."}]

“My favorite part of the film is where the main character sees the hula and is inspired and touched by it,” Park said. “Because it really took me back to when I lived in Los Angeles a long time ago, and I wasn't really homesick for Hawaiʻi very much, but one day — after living there for several years — I did go to Ho'olaule'a in Northridge, and I saw hula being performed, especially by little kids. It made me really homesick just because there's so much power and culture in it, and there's so much mana, right? So that moment when she sees the hula. She sees these women performing. And she feels that, I think that's just really special, and it's a catalyst for the story, too.”

The film has a fundraising goal of $50,000. 

So far, the film has raised about $20,000

“We're looking for support — for the community to follow the journey of the film — and then, of course, share it,” Park said.

In-kind donations and financial support are welcome. 

The short will premiere along with others in its 

American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women cohort

 at the Directors Guild of America Theater Complex in Los Angeles in February of 2027.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Chile

<title>'Groundbreaking' film combines Chile, Hawaiʻi and hula</title>

The short film “Pilina” combines cultural influences from Chile and Hawaiʻi with a common language: dance. Chilean American Filmmaker Carolina Espiro and Mānoa-based Producer Jana Park spoke with Aloha State Daily about the production, which will debut in early 2027.

'Groundbreaking' film combines Chile, Hawaiʻi and hula

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

A proposal to build the Thirty Meter Telescope on the former site of another observatory is “feasible,” said a TMT project leader last week.

Last October, Gov. Josh Green and all four of the state’s Congressional delegates signed 

 urging leaders of the TMT project to consider shifting the construction of the controversial observatory to another site on Mauna Kea’s summit.

The letter cited “the Hawai‘i community’s request” to instead build TMT on the site of a decommissioned observatory, rather than disturbing a previously untouched piece of summit land, as the plan has been so far. The letter’s signatories assured that they would work with the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority and the University of Hawai‘i to develop a process for securing the permits necessary for such a shift.

, TMT project manager Fengchuan Liu told the board that the project could still work if it was shifted to the former site of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, which was fully dismantled in 2024. The CSO, first activated in 1986, was selected for decommissioning as part of the terms for TMT to receive a permit; the University of Hawai‘i needed to commit to close five existing telescopes by 2033.

“We on the project have taken a preliminary look at this issue from the technical side, scientifically, engineering-wise, and we believe it is feasible to build on the CSO site,” Liu said.

Liu said there are size differences between TMT and CSO: TMT’s 

, including the observatory dome, support buildings and parking area is roughly five acres, while CSO 

Nonetheless, Liu reiterated that moving the site to the former CSO location could conceivably be done. He suggested that the observatory’s support facility — used to recoat the TMT’s primary mirror segments — could be moved off the mountain to a location at sea level. Liu said this would introduce a logistical burden to the telescope’s operation, but would reduce the observatory’s footprint.

However, the logistics of such a move are still unclear, Liu said. He told the board he does not know whether the process would require new conservation district use permits or new environmental impact studies, and said the TMT’s own board would also need to sign off on the change.

Liu added that the change in site would also introduce minor variances in the observatory’s functionality: he said the CSO location is in a valley lower than most other summit observatories, causing different wind patterns that could impact the telescope’s imaging, although he believes those impacts can be mitigated.

By the same token, Liu said the lower site would also make the facility less visible from around the island than its proposed higher-elevation site.

While there was no public testimony on the matter at last week’s meeting, the board’s discussion last November of Green’s letter drew hundreds of pages of testimony, largely in opposition to the TMT project in general, relocated or otherwise.

One way or another, the future of the project remains unclear. The National Science Foundation announced in 2024 that it could only realistically fund one of two proposed telescopes as part of a “U.S. Extremely Large Telescope” project — either TMT or the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile.

 last year that it had removed TMT from consideration — punching a $1.6 billion hole in the observatory’s budget — Congress passed 

 last month stipulating that the NSF advance both projects into final design review, although with no additional funding granted to either telescope.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026

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Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026

Authors

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