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Looking to make a local historical film with contemporary resonance, Big Island independent filmmaker David Cunningham found his plot hook in the class and racial tensions of the 1920s. Set on a Kona coffee plantation, “Running for Grace,” which debuts in Hawaii on Friday, is the Romeo-and-Juliet story of Jo (Ryan Potter) an outcast Japanese-Caucasian orphan who falls in love with Grace (Olivia Ritchie), the white plantation owner’s daughter.
“In the 1920s, Hawaii was right at the verge of a segregated society starting to become a melting pot,” Cunningham said by phone from his Honua Studios office in Kona. “There were laws making interracial marriage and adoption illegal.”
The plantation doctor (Matt Dillon) tries to adopt Jo (played as a child by Kona native Cole Takiue), his apprentice and runner, carrying medicine on foot to the Japanese laborers who gradually warm to the hapa boy. The plot thickens with the hiring of a new doctor (Jim Caviezel). Several supporting roles are played by local actors, among them the late Jon Sakata, to whom the film is dedicated.
“Running for Grace,” made entirely in Hawaii, is the first release from Cunningham’s Global Virtual Studio. “Our mission is to build the independent film scene in the islands for job creation as well as the opportunity to tell Hawaii stories,” said the 1988 Konawaena High School graduate, who went on to study film at the Univeristy of Southern California and direct Hollywood hits, including the Hawaii-filmed “To End All Wars.”
Cunningham arranged for a week of preview screenings in the islands before the film’s official mainland limited release Aug. 17.
“I wanted Hawaii audiences to have a shot at seeing it before the rest of the world,” he said. “Grace” kicks off in Honolulu at 7 p.m. Friday in Regal Dole Cannery Stadium theater, as well as in Kona and on Maui; the Hilo run starts July 27.
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