There were times while working on the film that the director felt she was with him. He’d somehow come upon just the right footage lost among the hundreds of hours of source material or he’d sense her presence in the wind.
"When filming at a forest on Hawaii island near a stream, I felt she was there with me and there were always butterflies hanging around there, near the beach, filming at a heiau," Kenneth K. Martinez Burgmaier said. "She was guiding us and still is."
Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Desha Beamer, known by most as Aunty Nona, was many things — a scholar, historian, performer, storyteller, community leader — but above all, she was a loving teacher. Aunty Nona taught true Hawaiian culture, from language and art to history and values. Her influence on Hawaii and on the knowledge of Hawaiiana is beyond measure.
Aunty Nona was 84 when she died in April 2008.
Years earlier, Burgmaier, an award-winning filmmaker and Beamer family friend, began filming interviews with Aunty Nona. He has just completed the film "Malama Ko Aloha," a documentary on Aunty Nona’s amazing life.
"I subconsciously started working on the film back in 2000 when I interviewed Aunty Nona at the World Hula Competition in Waikiki for another film I was directing, and then again with Keola Beamer for his film ‘Ki Ho‘alu,’" Burgmaier said.
Burgmaier came to realize the focus of the story should be Aunty Nona’s life.
Like Aunty herself, the film is graceful and poetic, so full of meaning that you could watch it over and over and understand it anew each time. The interviews have a kind of relaxed immediacy, a naturalness that makes you feel like you are sitting right there with Aunty Nona on that quiet beach or in the breezy garden of laua‘e and kalo.
Aunty Nona never let things get pedantic or heavy-handed. Even during the most serious lesson, there are lots of laughs. Not to be missed is her song about a cross-country trip in a hearse named Begonia and her recollection of the song Queen Liliuokalani wrote about a lawn sprinkler.
The documentary has been selected as the opening-night film at the Big Island Film Festival on May 24. Burgmaier, Keola and Moanalani Beamer, John and Hope Keawe, Sonny Lim and others involved in the project will be on hand to answer questions.
Burgmaier hopes to take the documentary to other festivals and is working toward a nationally televised broadcast. Eventually, the piece will be put on DVD for schools.
"She led people to do things they may not have considered possible," daughter-in-law Moanalani Beamer says in the film. "I think that was her magic. Even though she’s not among us in the same way now, she still affects us, still is bringing things into our lives, still encouraging us."
