Filmmaker expands his range — and ours
By Moon Yun Choi
Special to The Advertiser
Sergio Goes, originally from Brazil, made his mark in Hawai'i from 1987 to 1997 as a photographer and member of the artists' Image Foundation.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
Then he went to New York and found another outlet: documentary filmmaking.
Sergio Goes runs the new Cinema Paradise Film Festival. Some of its entries will be screened at Art House at Restaurant Row.
Last year, he returned to Hawai'i, where he and wife Andrea Torres want to raise their son Gabriel, now 1. Goes has been back on the local arts radar since pulling off last year's Cinema Paradise Film Festival.
The tall, dark-haired, unassuming surfer sports black horn-rimmed eyeglasses and casual attire, and looks most relaxed when strolling with his family.
This year, he's once again a primary organizer for the new film festival. With more backing and a full slate of competitive and showcase categories, the fall festival should encourage homegrown creativity.
A call for entries has been issued, and organizers are seeking nonprofit status.
"Our goal is to have a bigger and better festival this year," Goes said. "We want to stay true to our motto of independent films that matter."
Meanwhile, Goes' buzz meter continues to rise:
1) The competition: 2) New specialty programs include: If you have questions,write to info@cinemaparadise.org.
A portfolio of his photographs of Iona Contemporary Dance Theatre, with an introduction by Gavan Daws, is included in the summer issue of Manoa, a literary journal, under the appropriate title "Mercury Rising."
What's new for Cinema Paradise
The Image Foundation, with includes photographers Franco Salmoiraghi, David Ulrich and Dana Forsberg, also continues to be active. Goes is putting together a newsletter, Blur, to be published soon, and an Image Foundation-sponsored juried exhibit is planned for February.
Goes won two awards this year at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the largest of its kind, for "Black Picket Fence."
The beautifully shot 92-minute documentary follows two young black men, Tiz and Mel, as they struggle to break out of the violent East New York projects.
It took Goes about three years to make, following the two main characters for about two years.
The film has now been released as a video and DVD.
"They represent a lot of really bad stereotypes because they have been in jail for violent crimes. The film shattered those stereotypes," Goes said.
"Later in the film, you come to realize there's a common human denominator that makes them not so completely bad. Like us, they're striving for that white picket fence — that symbol of the American dream. But because of their environment, it's a more complicated situation."
Goes' documentary avoids both gang violence and cheerleading for the characters.
"The compliments I've gotten which best describe the documentary are that it has a dramatic structure that resembles a feature film, even though it's a documentary," Goes said.
He also earned praise for the cinematography and music.
The Brazilian film "Onibus 174" ("Bus 174") edged Goes for the Charles E. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. "Black Picket Fence" received an honorable mention.
It also was second finalist in the MTV/News: Docs: Prize competition at the festival, a category created to showcase films about being a young adult. ("Love & Diane," by Jennifer Dworkin, took first prize.) "It meant a lot to me when I went up on stage twice and was recognized in front of my peers," Goes said.
Screened at last year's Hawaii International Film Festival and Cinema Paradise Film Festival, "Black Picket Fence" plays next in Brazil at the New Frontiers Film Festival, and Australia at the Perth International Film Festival.
Meanwhile, Goes and co-organizer Chris Kahunahana are turning their attention to this year's Cinema Paradise Film Festival, Sept. 19-25 in Honolulu.
Kahunahana, who lives in San Francisco and is responsible for gathering films from the West Coast, plans a move to Brooklyn next month to work on the festival and collaborate on film projects.
This year, with backing from the Movie Museum, the festival will present a Hawaii Filmmaker Award with a cash prize, to be awarded by a jury of film professionals.
"Call for entries just started, and we have already received several," Goes said. "Our crew is very small. It's basically me, Chris, my wife Andrea Torres and Sidney Louie. We'll also be recruiting volunteers later. As for our budget, it's too soon to say, but it's going to be a small budget that we're putting together."
