The Maui wildfires aren’t in the national headlines anymore, but efforts continue to keep educating the world about the disaster and survivors.
That’s what producers and Kula residents Leah Warshawski and Todd Soliday are doing with their film, "Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool." It focuses on the impact of surf instructor Robert “Bully” Kotter on a group of kids in Lahaina.
Kotter and his wife also lost their Lahaina home in the fires just a week after closing on it. Warshawski and Soliday have been screening the film around the country, from the West Coast to landlocked Kansas.
HPR talked with Warshawski about the impact of the film outside Hawaiʻi — as well as about the recovery in Kula.
Warshawski said they were working on two documentaries at the time of the Maui wildfires. One was Uncle Bully’s Surf Skool, and the other focuses on Kula luthier Steve Grimes, who was on The Conversation yesterday.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Dec. 19, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
