Edmar and Pili are from feuding friend groups with much more in common than they know. Edmar and his friends struggle with limitations as working-class Filipino immigrants, while Pili and his friends face cultural erasure and dispossession as Native Hawaiians.
"My Partner," Hawaiʻi's first boys' love drama, premiered on O‘ahu and Maui earlier this year. Now, the feature film will debut at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on May 7.
Boys’ love drama is a genre that started in Japan and is widespread across Asia. It involves two male characters falling in love.
The film was written by Maui lawyer Lance Collins and directed by Native Hawaiian visual storyteller Keli’i Grace.
Collins says the film tackles local issues, explicitly facing West Maui.
“Disputes over water resources, disputes over natural resources, settler colonialism, working class, immigrant youth,” Collins said. “Those issues are prominent in West Maui, but they are issues that people worldwide deal with in their own local way.”
In addition, the film covers other themes of land stewardship, cultural and self/sexual identity and immigration in Hawai‘i.
The film follows the story of two Lahainaluna high school boys who don’t like each other and are forced to work on a school project. The main characters, Edmar and Pili, learn to understand each other’s cultures better and have a deeper understanding of themselves.
Also, the film showcases the characters speaking Tagalog, Native Hawaiian and English.
The cast and crew are Hawaiʻi-based and first-time actors.
For more information about the film click here.
