Who/What: The Harimaya Bridge by Aaron Woolfolk.
When/Where: Friday, April 23 until May at the Regal Dole Cannery Theater in Iwilei.
Today’s showings: 1:00, 4:00, 7:05, 9:55p.m.
Additional information: If you missed writer/director Aaron Woolfolk’s moving debut film at last year’s Hawaii International Film Festival, make sure you see it this time around. Executive Producer and supporting actor Danny Glover said The Hariyama Bridge “risks taking us out of our comfort zone” and helps us “explore new dynamics and relationships.”
The film is set in rural Kochi Prefecture, where Woolfolk was a JET teacher in the early 1990s, and stars American actors Ben Guillory and Glover, as well as Japanese actors Saki Takaoka and Misa Shimizu.
Guillory plays Daniel Holder, a retired San Francisco photographer, embittered by his son Mickey’s (Victor Grant) decision to live and work in Japan, where Daniel’s father died as a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese. Mickey’s decision leaves father and son estranged.
Mickey thrives in Kochi, only to die suddenly, thus forcing his father to go to Kochi to bring his son’s belongings back to San Francisco. He arrives in Japan a bitter man on a single-minded mission – until several secrets force him to open his heart.