Meet Hawaiʻi award-winning student filmmakers who swept HIFF, ʻŌlelo YXC awards this year
Before his 18th birthday, Virgil Tan, award-winning local student filmmaker, had already been featured at international festivals, taken home the top prize at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival's ʻŌpio Film Festival and earned a place at Chapman University's prestigious Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
HIFF Opio Fest: The Future of Film
His short film New Start didn't just make waves. It won Best Short Film at HIFF's student showcase.
'I'm very grateful for my crew and my parents for helping me out throughout this journey,' Tan said. 'I got a bunch of positive feedback for my new film, New Start, so I'm pretty happy with that.'
Tan's journey is striking. He was born in China, acted in a film with Jet Li before he could read and moved to Hawaiʻi when he was six. By high school, he was behind the camera, self-teaching through nightly movie marathons and online classes.
'I kind of like being behind the camera more than in front of the camera,' Tan said. 'Every shot means something to me.'
His perspective is deeply personal as it's a way to communicate beyond language barriers. As a first-generation immigrant, he never felt fluent in Chinese or English; so, film became his language.
'It's my way of talking,' he said. 'It's like my language almost.'
On the other end of Oʻahu, at Waipahu Elementary School, a different but equally powerful movement is underway. A group of young students — all in grades five and six — made a huge splash after winning the most awards of any school at the 2024 ʻŌlelo Youth Xchange Student Video Competition.
Cendisse Alvarez, award-winning local student filmmaker from Waipahu Elementary School, wanted to make sure viewers didn't overlook the beauty around them.'I wanted to show people the importance of the monkey pod trees,' Alvarez said. 'They aren't just ordinary trees.'
Her message was one of several that caught judges' attention. The students' videos tackled themes like healthy eating, environmental responsibility, disaster preparedness and kindness. All topics close to home and critical for Hawaiʻi's future.
Timothy Ragasa, an award-winning local student filmmaker, focused on nutrition. 'Eating fruits and veggies is better because they provide vitamin C and many things that are healthy for your body,' Ragasa said.
Ryzelle Valencia, also an award-winning local student filmmaker, took on pollution. 'I saw people shooting the community, such as littering or just not recycling,' Valencia said. 'And I think that the video could inspire others to start treating it better.'
Brooklyn Hiyakumoto, an award-winning local student filmmaker, wanted to highlight how much more people could do if they simply helped. 'I wanted to inspire how much better we educate with helping,' Hiyakumoto said.
For many of the Waipahu students, the project was their first experience behind a camera. But the impact of that first step was huge.
Naomi Agno, an award-winning local student filmmaker, saw a problem and turned it into action. 'There was a lot of litter and trash around the school and this environment,' Agno said. 'So, I decided to make a video about cleaning the community and making this place a better area.'
Nakki Maejan, award-winning local student filmmaker, brought a sense of continuity and dedication. 'I wanted to express my creativity,' Maejan said. 'And I wanted to take a step up and do the same topic that [my friends] did so that I could win for them.'
These young storytellers have no illusions about the future. Some want to pursue film professionally. Others don't. But all of them saw the value in learning to tell their story.
Check out more news from around Hawaii
'I don't plan on pursuing filmmaking,' said Donya Mae Hernandes, award-winning local student filmmaker. 'I do like it. And like Ryzelle said, I would do it as a hobby.'
Valencia echoed that. 'Although it is fun, I'm pretty sure I don't want to do filmmaking in the future.'
For others like Maejan, the spark has just begun. 'I choose to continue filmmaking,' she said. 'After finally winning an award this year, I want to show my other creativity.'
Tan, on the other hand, is now preparing for college in California. His films are layered with meaning, shaped by identity, place and purpose, much like his Waipahu counterparts.
'I think through film, it's my way of talking,' Tan said. 'It fulfills my purpose. I feel like that is my purpose as being on this Earth.'
Tan understands that filmmaking isn't always seen as a viable path, especially for Asian youth and first-gen students like himself. He's had to push through doubt, discipline, and cultural expectations.
'At the beginning, they kind of told me to not touch art,' Tan said of his parents, who were acrobats before immigrating to the U.S. 'But they saw that I had a passion for the arts. So, they had no choice but to support me.'
He's drawn to films that explore inner conflict and emotion. Palm Tree, one of his early projects, explored psychological tension and personal struggle. His latest film, New Start, was inspired by the film Blue Valentine.
Now, with college on the horizon, Tan's preparing to immerse himself fully in the art form.
'I'm definitely going to make a lot of films during college,' he said. 'That is the environment. Obviously, the environment there is creative. I will make films.'
The students from Waipahu are also thinking about where they'll go next and whether they'll stay in Hawaiʻi or explore beyond.
Big changes could be coming for Hawaii's film industry — and they aren't good
'Hawaiʻi involves many opportunities,' Alvarez said. 'But I think that other places does, too. I would like to also travel the world and show my creativity there.'
Maejan wants to continue filmmaking elsewhere. 'I should go somewhere else if I want to continue,' she said. 'Because I want to continue adding up to my creativity and inspiring more people.'
For Tan, the long hours of watching films, studying scripts and editing shots weren't just about skill-building. They were about finding a voice.
'Arts is a great way of not really directly fighting racism,' Tan said. 'But it is an indirect way of kind of passively fighting back.'
From elementary school classrooms in Waipahu to red carpets at international festivals, Hawaiʻi's next generation of filmmakers is ready. Whether they choose to make films professionally or not, their voices already matter; and their advice for others is clear.
'Just push your limits and do it,' Alvarez said. 'You only live once.'
'Try new things and discover new things,' Ragasa said.
'Even if you are nervous… just do it,' Valencia said. 'Now it's like family.'
Tan knows exactly what filmmaking has meant to him.
'I feel like film really fulfills my purpose,' he said. 'That is my purpose as being on this Earth.'
So, whether you're visiting Hawaiʻi, living here, or just tuning in — listen. These young voices are telling stories worth hearing.
Get news on the go with KHON 2GO, KHON's morning podcast, every morning at 8
You can watch the full interview with Tan and the Waipahu students in the video above.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Frankly, I was happy to put Boston behind me. My childhood was miserable, filled with trauma. I never wanted to return to this place, except perhaps for holidays or funerals. Or so I thought. I had received a job offer from The Boston Globe, a paper I long idolized, and just had to take it. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up The Facebook invite was from Kellie, a person who wasn't quite a friend in high school. But we got along — I recall we danced a bit on stage when we performed in our high school musical. 'Who would you like to invite?' Kellie asked. Good question. I didn't really keep in touch with anyone. But I was Facebook friends with several people like Kellie, classmates who were friendly acquaintances but people I never spent time with outside of school. When you're a kid and struggling, you think you're the only one who's struggling. 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They started a laundry business before Dad went to work for New England Telephone Company. He would sit on a bench and assemble parts into landline telephones. Like many Chinese families, they wanted desperately to have a son, which proved difficult for them. By the time I was born in 1977, Dad was already 49 years old and father to four daughters. No one would ever mistake us for the Brady Bunch. Dad was an angry, abusive man who frequently unleashed his verbal and physical wrath on his wife and daughters. He never laid a hand on me, though he was psychologically abusive. Mom suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. She could be loving and caring in one moment and then suddenly attack me with a ruler or Wiffle ball bat for the tiniest of infractions. She heard voices and insisted that the neighbors were using a machine to monitor our thoughts. My eldest sister, whom I'll call Susan, started to lose her grip on reality in her late teens and was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. She would chase me throughout the house with a pair of scissors, threatening to castrate me. She would frequently try to climb into bed with me. I coped with the chaos the same way many trauma victims deal with such things: I buried it deep inside me. I started to compartmentalize reality. There was the 'good reality,' the one where I hung out with friends, crushed on a girl, acted in high school plays, and wrote for the town newspaper. The world in which I exercised a degree of control and provided my life with some measure of hope and meaning. And then there was the 'bad reality' of the horror and fear that I endured at home. The reality that still terrifies me. I vowed to keep these realities apart. Not just out of self-preservation but also out of fear that my bad reality would somehow pollute or 'infect' my good reality. That's why I rarely spoke about my parents or siblings or why I freaked out when someone I knew saw me in public with them. No, these two realities must never meet. 'What else was I missing?' After high school, I went to college and tried not to look back. Over the next 25 years, I lived and worked in New York, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, and San Francisco. One of my sisters died from cancer in 2003, and Dad passed away three years ago. Both times, I kept my distance, though before my dad died I did return home once to help my parents move into a more senior-friendly house located just down the road from my childhood home in Watertown. Susan's life had rapidly deteriorated. She could no longer hold a job or live on her own. So she moved back in with my parents in their new home. Unfortunately, Susan's schizophrenia started to mirror Mom's. Susan thought the neighbors were out to get her. She accused them of trying to break into the house and prank-calling us. She convinced my mom to change phone numbers and to install a home alarm system. She even called the police on the neighbors. 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'Over the years, I came to accept she had an awful illness and was also physically and sexually abused,' I wrote on Facebook on Oct. 16, 2022. 'I'm also sorry that she suffered so much in her life and that her sickness produced so much collateral damage.' My posts found a wide and compassionate audience. 'The fact that you came to understand how sick she was shows how you've grown in your awareness and understanding,' one friend wrote. 'It does not make your pain any less. But you are managing.' Said another: 'We grow through our painful experiences, but also through the experiences of others willing to share.' The things that bind us together When people learned I was returning to the Boston area, they assumed the reason was family. 'No,' I said. 'I'm here for the job. That's all.' That wasn't quite true. I wondered how Boston would look to me as a middle-aged man rather than as an angry, emotionally volatile 17-year-old. The dinner invitation from Madeline came as a surprise. For one thing, I was shocked that she had moved back to Watertown. Madeline, her older sister, and I had performed in the same high school plays. In fact, I had a major crush on her sister. That was a major part of the 'good reality' that I so desperately tried to protect from the 'bad.' And later, Madeline had tried to pursue a career in acting. She attended theater schools and auditioned for movie and television roles. I imagined her in New York or Los Angeles maybe. But yet here she was, married and raising a family in Watertown. But until I received her dinner invite, I didn't know exactly where. As it turned out, Madeline lives right next door to Mom and Susan. Could it be that Madeline and her family were the same neighbors my sister fixated on? The people she called the cops on? During the dinner, I tried to read Madeline and her husband, whom I'll call Greg, for some clues about whether she knew that my mom and sister lived next door. But they gave no indication of that. I started to think it wasn't them. I decided to find out. 'Hey, this is pretty weird,' I said. 'But did you know you live next door to my mom and sister?' Greg's face changed color. Madeline stopped eating. Silence. OMG. They were the neighbors. No, they didn't know it was my family. And yes, my sister called the cops on them. Three times. She accused them of racism. The cops had taken Susan's complaints seriously. Each time the police arrived they brought some kind of crisis interventionist/social worker to teach Madeline and Greg how not to be racist. 'I am not racist!' Madeline insisted to me. No matter how hard Madeline and Greg tried to convince Susan, she heard something different. 'First of all, I am so sorry," I said, mortified. 'Secondly, it's better that you do not say anything to her. No matter your intentions. She is just very sick.' 'I know,' Madeline said. 'At first, we were very upset. But then I started to read the social media posts of this guy I knew, who wrote on Facebook about mental illness and his family. He taught me compassion toward people who were struggling like this.' Who was this guy? 'You,' Madeline said. The world grew exponentially smaller. Let me get this straight: Madeline, an acquaintance with whom I had not spoken in 30 years, read my social media posts about mental health, which allowed her to better understand the actions of her ill neighbor, who turned out to be my sister . So in a sense, I was paying it forward to myself when I wrote those posts. To this day, I wrestle with what happened. I don't believe in coincidences. Everything has a reason. What was I supposed to take from all of this? I concluded that I had been mistaken to draw a distinction between 'good' and 'bad' reality. There is just reality. We view our lives holistically if we want to heal. We have to confront past trauma and reconcile it with our present and future. The bad stuff in my life occurred simultaneously with the good stuff. It's true that my sister chased me with scissors. It's equally true that I happily performed plays with Madeline and her sister. And somehow the universe saw fit to remind us that life can be filled with mysterious little coincidences that seem unrelated but ultimately bind us together. The question is whether you want to see the big picture.