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Melina Kiyomi Coumas is an award-winning filmmaker from the island of O'ahu, now based in the Pacific Northwest. With a BA in Film Studies, her focus is in experimental filmmaking with interests in photography and writing. She shoots primarily on celluloid film formats, exploring themes surrounding memory, identity and perception.

 

Melina is a freelancer for arts organizations and film festivals and is currently Programming Manager at the Hawai'i International Film Festival. 

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Photography

Ocean Moon, Water Mother 海月 水母 (2023)

16mm, Color, Sound

Narrative short currently in pre-production.

Spit it Out (2023)

Super 8mm, Color, Sound

A personal, intimate short detailing what growing up with a speech

impediment was like for the filmmaker and how it continues to affect her 

to this day.

$hithole Paradise  (2020)

Super 8mm, Color, Sound

A comment on over-tourism in Hawaii, particularly along the historic Waikiki strip in Honolulu. An advertised “Paradise,” Waikiki has become an epicenter for drugs and crime. Once a powerful sacred place for Native Hawaiians, now a dirty playground for tourists.

Call Me Back  (2020)

Super 8mm, Color, Sound
Using the last voicemail Melina's Grandmother left on her phone, the

short becomes a mediation on loss and haunted spaces. Originally made

just for family.

Aquí (2019)

16mm, Color, Sound

An exploration of what home means to a multicultural young woman.

In Spanish with English subtitles.

Day Off Vibes (2018)

16mm, Color, Sound

A rumination on the pressures of being productive.

Obsidian Glaze (2016)

Super 8mm, Color, Sound

A mysterious entity attempts to communicate with strange images

Reverie At Noon (2016)

16mm, Color, Sound
Inspired by the summer heat and a newfound obsession with ASMR

A Ritual Phantasm (2015)

Super 8mm & 16mm, Color, Sound
Super 8mm footage was
an experiment shot in 2015 with 16mm hand painted segments made during a 2016 workshop with Japanese experimental filmmaker Makino Takashi

 

Kaigan (2015)

Super 8mm, Color, Sound

An attempt to remove tourists from a tropical landscape, returning it to its pure and natural state

Film
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Recent and
           Upcoming

          WAVE Grant Recipient
          Seattle Asian American Film Festival 
          South Sound Experimental Film Festival
          aCinema Space
          Antimatter Media Art
          Time/Space Series - Eugene Contemporary Art
          Splice Film Festival
          Made in Hawaii Film Festival
          Peripheries Experimental Film + Video Festival
          Experimental Films Online
          Fisura International Festival of Experimental Film + Video

 
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