The inspiring story of the University of Hawaii Wahine volleyball team and its early struggle for athletic equality in Manoa could become a feel-good feature film.
Actress Sarah Wayne Callies (“The Walking Dead,” “Colony”) and actor-director Dean Kaneshiro (“Hawaii Five-0,” “Last Resort”) have written a screenplay and are looking for actors but still need the financial backing to make it happen.
They know the topic well: Kaneshiro directed the 2014 documentary on the volleyball team, “Rise of the Wahine,” which was narrated by Callies, a Punahou classmate. They’re good friends from the class of 1995.
Although today’s Wahine volleyball players are bona fide rock stars among local fans, the team’s original players were victims of gender discrimination when they first played in 1974. They had to fight for equal access to practice courts and resources at a time when some felt that women did not deserve to play collegiate sports.
Title IX, the 1972 federal legislation authored by U.S. Rep Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii, helped the team and its supporters leverage opportunities. Title IX mandated equal financing for women’s athletics and academics.
Kaneshiro’s documentary covered that ground, exploring the way UH women’s athletic director Donnis Thompson and Mink changed the playing field for women forever. The film would be similar, said the 38-year-old Kaneshiro.
“We are doing our best to honor the people that the documentary features,” he said. “But it is packaged in a different way. There are some fictionalized elements. It’s a film. But it still talks about the same events and will be accurate.”
Before he made his documentary, Kaneshiro envisioned the story as a feature film but decided he would be doing so much research on the Wahine that a documentary was a natural extension.
“I wrote tons of notes and I always had a film script in mind from the beginning, and I created an outline and themes,” he said. “I saw a big Disney sports inspirational movie coming from this.”
When Callies, 38, visited Hawaii in December 2012, Kaneshiro pitched the idea for a movie one day when their daughters were playing together. Her character had just been killed off in “The Walking Dead,” so the timing was right.
Callies wanted to write it, too.
Soon, Kaneshiro was interviewing people for the documentary and sharing what he found with Callies. The two spent hours brainstorming ideas, said Kaneshiro. He would return from interviews excited by what he had learned.
“I would send her stuff and she would tweak it into scenes,” he said. “We already had an outline. But as I filled in the blanks with all these really colorful details, she would take it and create something really amazing.”
Kaneshiro has actors in mind but can’t say yet who he would like to see in the roles of Thompson and Mink, as well as longtime head coach Dave Shoji. It would be a strong showcase for minority actors and women, Kaneshiro said.
There is no timetable for production.
Every time he reads the screenplay it moves him.
“It’s an incredible David and Goliath story,” Kaneshiro said. “And all of us who are a part of the Hollywood team, we feel that the themes are relevant to today: gender, equality, athletics.”
AND that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
