on the island of hawaii sits a dormant
volcano named mauna kea
it's the highest point in hawaii and if
you measure from the sea floor
it's the tallest mountain in the world
and this height
paired with a few other important
elements has made it home to numerous
observatories but this mountain
isn't just a perfect place to peer deep
into the vastness of our universe
it's also a very sacred place for the
local native hawaiian people
who have been protesting the
construction of a newly planned
telescope
since the site was selected for
construction in 2009
this film from co-directors carter lau
and duncan hager
as well as their team from chapman
university looks to shed light on an
important debate that may have been
tragically overlooked
so many times in the past science versus
culture
this is beyond the mana
i have no choice but to be here to
defend
that place that is most sacred to me and
that's the summit of mauna kea
now construction of the 30 meter
telescope is set to begin this morning
on mauna kea
and it's being met with some big
protests
we're told there were 33 people who were
arrested
it's time for native people to stand up
for their rights
astronomy at its core is understanding
the universe and our place in it
my dream is to work at one of the
observatories on mauna kea
as a native hawaiian she says the
telescope is part of her heritage
there comes a time in your life where
you have to stand for something
we hawaiians can look up at the stars
and
know that we are all connected this is
an important stand this is the last
stand
this is not a game this is for real
long long ago when the world was new
wakea the sky
father looked down and saw the beauty of
papahanaumoku the earth mother
from this love was born mountains which
rose high
above papa's waves touching the face of
their father
he placed beautiful lay of clouds on
their heads
and papa placed beautiful lay of seafoam
on their necks
kamauna awakea the mountain of wakaya
was the kupuna or firstborn and was held
in high
esteem as the pico the center
of the beginning of the hawaii island
man was first introduced to the islands
around 400 to 500
a.d groups of polynesians from the
marquesas islands
first landed on the southern coast kalai
on the big island of hawaii traversing
the ocean
on double hulk canoes and navigating by
the only tool they needed
the stars
[Music]
the 30 meter telescope on mauna kea is
the best instrument to answer one of
humanity's biggest questions
is there life outside of earth now
construction of the 30 meter telescope
is set to begin this morning on mauna
kea
and it's being met with some big
protests
billy freitas and at least a dozen
kupuna bound themselves together with
miley lay across the base of mauna kea
access road
continuing to follow breaking news we're
live at mauna kea access road this
morning we showed you just moments ago
live on wake up today the first kupuna
being arrested
we're told there were 33 people who were
arrested
now they chose to be cited and then
released
today was an emotionally intense day for
both sides
because those who were arrested were
kupuna officials also say it was hard
for them because the officers
making the arrests were taking friends
and family into custody
[Music]
my name is dr noinoy wong wilson i'm one
of the kupuna
who have been residing here in the camps
the reason we've been here for 155 days
is to stop the tmt trucks from going up
the mountain
to begin their construction project
[Music]
i was arrested on july 17th along with
37 other kupuna
for sitting on the road and blocking
tmt trucks from going up onto the
mountain
and it was painful it was emotional
and we all cried but they understood
they understood that this was going to
be a long fight
this is a fight about our mountain and
about the sacredness of it
and the intrusion of the astronomy
industry
on on our summit for the last 50 years
so there are already 13 telescope
facilities
and then this 14th one is now being
proposed
it's not the science that we fight it's
the size of the building and the
location
at the summit area which is the most
sacred part of the mountain
and that's why we sit on the road
[Music]
new perspective tonight on the
controversial telescope that's gaining
more and more attention
it comes from a student whose voice is
now being amplified by
thousands milani neal started a petition
this week in support of the telescope
neal wants the world to know many native
hawaiians such as herself support
construction of the 30 meter telescope
this petition has been going
for four days and we have over two
thousand signatures
as a native hawaiian she says the
telescope is part of her heritage
despite some backlash to her pro tmt
petition
neal hopes debate over the telescope
doesn't become crass
or mean-spirited
my name is mailani neal i am native
hawaiian
and i was born and raised in kona on the
big island
i'm currently a phd student at new
mexico tech
where i am studying physics and
astronomy instrumentation
my ancestors navigated by the stars
to travel to the unknown and discover
what there is
and i think that astronomy is doing
exactly that
my dream is to work at one of the
observatories on mauna kea
i would love to be an instrumentation
scientist for one of the telescopes
and eventually someday i would hope to
be a director of one of the
observatories
i'm striving to be very understanding of
all
people in this situation and i'm
striving to be
the best astronomer that i can be so
that i can prove
that you know us native hawaiians are
meant to be here
we are meant to continue to follow the
stars
as we go further beyond our planet
mauna kea is not the main issue monica
is is a symptom
that all stems and goes back to 1893
the hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in
1893.
first of all we need to identify what is
the hawaiian kingdom hawaii was actually
part of the british empire
under king kamehameha iii he achieved
recognition of great britain
of hawaiian independence so basically we
achieved
what the american colonies achieved an
independent state
the whole purpose of the takeover by the
united states
was to secure pearl harbor it was
actually a takeover of the queen and her
cabinet
replaced her with insurgents the
narrative was businessmen
took over government from natives who
were unfit to govern
very racist very racist
five years later in 1898 congress just
passed the law
providing for the annexation of the
hawaiian islands supposedly hawaii was
annexed
the problem is american laws have no
effect beyond the borders of the united
states
the united states could no more annex
hawaii by passing a law
then the congress today can pass a joint
resolution annexing mexico
and the response was we're a miracle we
can do whatever we want
so why is it that nobody knows that
history
there's a reason in 1895 one of the
insurgents who was a trustee of the
kamehameha schools
he stated on the record that if we are
ever to have peace
and annexation the first thing to do is
to obliterate the past
obliterate the past what does that mean
that means remove any memory
of the country in the minds of the
people
in 1906 a formal policy of
denationalization was adopted by the
territory of hawaii
board of education these insurgents
obliterated
the national consciousness of an entire
population within three generations
so now you take all of that and you look
at mauna kea
people are learning the history that is
getting them to make certain decisions
that they wouldn't otherwise make
mauna kea is just part of the awakening
morning mom morning honey what you up to
today
hon we're gonna go stop by the east
asian observatory and talk with jess
no i can't believe she's actually going
to be there huh i know she's always
traveling
when i was going to school the hawaiian
culture was not
um prevalent it was not the hawaiian
continent was kind of recovering
recovering maybe
it was just revive it was reviving
at that time we weren't required to take
hawaiian language
i guess it is hard to define what
hawaiian
culture is but you know the dance
and the song and the language is
something that can be kept
forever but you still have to be
educated
there's a whole world out there there's
a whole
galaxy out there you know we shouldn't
limit ourselves
you know this is my first time seeing it
and it's a pretty it's pretty uh
heavy
i'm kind of sorry i'm kind of taking it
all
in it's not what i expected really
i honestly kind of wish that there were
uh i guess more safe
structures for them to be in while they
are up here like you know seeing
seeing tents makes me kind of wish that
there was a
more comfortable situation for them up
[Music]
here
[Music]
um
[Applause]
whitaker i'm eight years old
my name is like kama awakia
and it's kind of close to mauna awakea
and i'm like the child of the mauna
i think that i want to protect my mom
i learned being up on the mauna is
that how he stands strong for the mana
and how we stand in kabul it just
sends all the energy to the mauna and
it probably makes damona really happy
and i'm glad because i want
her to be happy
if it takes this kind of stand by the
kupuna who are sitting on the road now
so that our children and our
grandchildren and our great
grandchildren
don't have to suffer don't have to fight
to have a voice about our own land and
our own sacred spaces
then we will stand here until the bitter
[Music]
end
i haven't been back here in a year and
it it feels like i'm home
we have namaka nui our new instrument
coming so
uncle larry named that yes and so
it has um it has three different
receivers right yeah so when i was
describing it to him i'm like you can
see the coldest dark
you know darker stuff in the universe
that you can't see with your eyes
and i said i need something hawaiian
that kind of has varieties
and i need three of them so you say oh
no makanui big eyed fish
these are the ones that come out at
night and have the really big eyes
because they don't need that much light
to see i'm like well that's just perfect
so the three different receivers are
available
oh yeah so that's such a suiting name
for
the instrument it's perfect so my name
is jessica dempsey i
am the deputy director of the east asian
observatory
we run the james clerk maxwell telescope
on mauna kea
so the 30 meter telescope is exactly
that it's an optical infrared telescope
and it will be about three times larger
than the largest optical
telescope which is also currently up on
mauna kea which would be the keck
observatories
the bigger a dish or a mirror the tinier
the thing
you can see on the sky the higher the
resolution of the facility
the other thing is it means you collect
more light so that means you can see
fainter things
and so those two things take you into
new roles
hoping to image exoplanets for the first
very first time
that may lead us to actually being able
to tell whether some of those planets
might
be inhabitable for life so monica
is the best site for observing the
universe in the entire world
at essentially every single wavelength
that comes down to us
from the sky and there is a range of
amazing geographical reasons
why mauna kea is so still and the sky is
so clear
because of those reasons it means it's
perfect for astronomy
the hawaiians are some of the best
scientists on the planet they still are
finding the understanding of the
universe in the hawaiian creation chart
the cumuli pop
their context and understanding of the
universe
is mind-boggling to me
and when you start reading that you go
there is no wonder that they read
the sky like a book
[Music]
hi cindy just wanting to let you guys
know we're leaving hilo
with about 50 cars
there are a whole bunch of people who
joined us along the route and there were
people waving signs where we got down to
the main intersection
i know so i just let everybody know i
was trying to let poor know so she could
announce it but
let everybody okay okay thank you
okay all right
i want to take a picture because i know
there's some people who are not going to
make it all the way to kapa'a
i tell you this is bigger than i dreamt
that it was going to be
last night i thought we had yeah
last night i thought we had three cars
this is really exciting i wrote back i
called back to the mama
to tell everybody that we're all here
and i know my chitanoi
is live streaming so the rest of the
community knows where we are
so mahalo everybody for coming out today
ready one two one
[Applause]
[Music]
our community is so divided right now
and so polarized
we're here in this community now we need
to find a way
to change how we interact to find a way
for
these things to not be on two different
sides of a fence
astronomers don't go into astronomy
prepared to be bad guys
not many of us were emotionally prepared
to suddenly be you know disliked to
suddenly be on the other side
now having to step into a conversation
from an emotional standpoint rather than
something that's fact-based
which scientists are much more
comfortable doing that was
something that we really needed to
change in our mindset how do we find a
way forward
for everybody one part of that is for
some part of the astronomy community and
even existing observatories to say
we may personally not have perpetrated
any of the things which have come home
to roost right now but we do now
represent some of them
the thing that is really exciting to me
is mailani is a natural leader
and standing here and looking towards
the future
for what we have to do here on the
island mailani
along with the young leaders and other
people who are finding their voice and
their feet
in the adversity that's coming up in
this island they're going to be the ones
who solve this
so i've had people tell me that because
of my beliefs
that i am not native hawaiian or i don't
deserve to be native hawaiian
but i believe that what makes me native
hawaiian is that
i am doing all that i can
to perpetuate the culture and to see
forth that it will be in a much better
place
than what i received it i am very
naively optimistic
and where i see this ending is that
we find a middle ground and find a way
forward for the benefit of
the future generations i think
everyone has a personal choice about
whether or not they want to participate
in what we're doing
i feel strongly that i have to be here
it is it is what everything
in my life has brought me to the day i
got arrested i just thought
i had never experienced this i imagine
if they come again it won't be much
different
and it will be a frightening experience
again
but we're prepared for it if that's what
it takes
to protect our mauna
[Music]
um
good morning thank you uh for joining us
here
we have been informed that
the 30 meter telescope will not be
proceeding with
construction at this time so we thought
that it would be prudent to
start to de-escalate and return access
to monaco access road
[Music]
what's different today is that mauna kea
access road is
open the governor expressed his
disappointment that tmt will not move
forward for now
tmt leaders say mauna kea is still their
preferred site
now the question is will the
demonstrators leave
so all my girl nerds get one of these
you get to be either a lady nerd
you can say science will not be silenced
or you can be a feminist
choices i know i'm pretty hard i'm going
to go with steminos
that's michelle honey thank you so much
you're very welcome and thank you so
much for
taking the time to see me today yeah i'm
always of yours
i hereby dub thee a feminist
they're so um my mission or vacation
here is to
keep the women and girls who are in stem
you are going to be one of our leaders
going forward into the future for a
whole bunch of reasons and
girls need to see more women you know
blazing a trail like you are
and that's really important so thank you
we are going to change how we do science
how we connect culturally how this
community
grows together and there's nothing bad
about any of that
people like mailani they always get me
out of bed in the morning
that's what gives me hope
[Music]
we look at the stars and it's very
symbolic
of our past we can know that our
ancestors are
there watching us and guiding us
the hawaiians found us through the stars
this is what our ancestors did
but that hurt is still there since 1893
when our queen
was overthrown and justice has never
been done and at the same time looking
up at the stars and looking at spaces
extremely symbolic of the future of what
is going to
happen we need to find a way to change
how we interact to find a way for
these things to not be on two different
sides of a fence
hawaii is now worldly it's back on the
world stage
it's time for native people to stand up
for their rights
and to be counted it's that time we are
all
unified and we are all connected
we are native hawaiians we have a
history together and we will continue
into the future together
[Music]
i aspire to serve as an example
by being afforded the opportunities and
taking advantage of those opportunities
so that
we are able to pursue our dreams
[Music]
this project is not essential to the
livelihood of this community
it is not needed by the sports community
and it's not wanted by the people of
waimanalo
[Applause]
we're not talking even what's happening
on the big island itself a pack far from
the mountain even far
from the islands demonstrators are
gathering beyond our shores people in
anchorage alaska took to the streets
with signs
many are from hawaii but now live in the
49th state
[Music]
[Applause]
aloha to all my relatives in hawaii
armenian environmental front and almost
our protectors stand in solidarity
with the kanaka maoli in the struggle to
stop the desecration of their ancestral
[Music]
lands
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
we sat down with the filmmakers and
asked about their local connection to
the story
hi guys my name is carter lau i am one
of the co-directors of the film beyond
the mauna and i am currently in orange
county california
i'm duncan haeger i'm one of the
co-directors cinematographer and
co-editors for the film
and i'm located here in orange county
california as well
[Music]
so i was born and raised in honolulu
hawaii
and the hawaiian culture and the values
and morals and ideals
that surrounding my home are they become
a big part of who i am
and a part of you know the kind of
stories that i want to tell and create
yeah and to build off of that um i
remember we were brainstorming ideas
within the community voices program
a couple years ago i had done a short
documentary on the annexation of hawaii
and i always wanted to tell that story
in kind of a more
um present way involving stuff that was
already kind of going on so when carter
had you know approached me and we were
forming groups
i immediately you know jumped at this
idea in the storyline i felt like
there's so many different
uh players here and so many different
great themes about past and future
[Music]
being film students it was a little
intimidating at first
tackling such a big controversy you know
that's kind of on a national stage and
literally spending 10 days
up on the mountain and around oahu and
at different observatories
dealing with adults and you know facing
real life issues
like this but i think like everyone
we're just we're just human we're just
people and that's how we approached it
and we connected to all of them
that's one of the best things i think
about docs is that you're able to
connect
with real people and you're able to
empathize right there with them and
i think that's what we did and we came
up with something that was
i think very meaningful to both the
subjects and to people
around the world who care about this
kind of stuff i think back to a
conversation i had with one of my
professors when i asked him
you know hey i'm young i don't know if
i'm you know ready to you know go into a
class this
this big you know with all these great
other filmmakers and he told me he said
duncan there's never a good time to make
a film and that's kind of been my
mindset about
everything you are looking for that
perfect opportunity and it's never going
to be there
if you have an idea you just got to go
and go and do it
[Music]
i think one of the challenges we really
fought was in the post-production
process
and in the editing you know we got to a
point we had about 12 different cuts of
this film and there was a midway point
where we realized that we had one
character on screen for probably like
65 percent of the film and we weren't
showing enough of the other characters
and so that was one thing that's really
important kind of that you know unbiased
thing you don't even think about we
worked really hard to you know keep that
inner cutting of the of the different
scenes between the different characters
you know as consistent
as possible i think when people are
thinking and resonating and weighing two
different options
i think our film's really achieving what
we set out to do one of our goals yeah
and what we what we find
a lot of people viewers who watch this
film is that after
it ends after the credits roll a lot of
people just start that conversation and
start sparks the conversation
about i'm talking about both sides of
the tmt controversy and what it means
you know to protect your culture and uh
to to to push forward
uh what it means to be hawaiian and what
it means for cultures around the world
looking back on this opportunity i just
feel so lucky that we were able to shoot
this project kind of before kovit went
down
and yeah i want to thank the don family
foundation and all my crewmates duncan
lauren thomason and ricky king you know
for all helping me
and coming together for us to create and
produce this story for all of
my my island and for all of science and
for all of
i don't know the world to kind of see
and take in um
and for what's going to happen with
mauna kea we're not too sure yet
they're going to continue going back and
forth in 2021 after kovit
hopefully dies down i just hope that
when they're making the decision they're
able to look at our film
and kind of see both ends and kind of
you know take into account
uh the important perspectives of both
sides
and make the best decision going forth
for the future of hawaii
i'd like to thank the don family
foundation you know my crew members
uh sally rubin are you know ricky carter
lauren you guys did such a phenomenal
job and you know i loved working on this
team
you know for the past year like carter
said i think that this film will
hopefully impact a greater audience
teach so many people
not only about this social movement but
social movements
in the future thanks again for joining
us for seeker indie and this
presentation of beyond the mana
it's stories like these that can inspire
more discoveries
more adventures and new ideas that may
one day help save
our planet