{"id":205704,"date":"2026-04-22T03:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205704\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T03:53:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:53:07","slug":"lahaina-wildfire-documentary-to-be-shown-at-un-forum-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205704\/","title":{"rendered":"Lahaina wildfire documentary to be shown at UN forum in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LAHAINA (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; The award-winning documentary &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lahainarising.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.lahainarising.com\/\">Lahaina Rising<\/a>&#8216; is showing at United Nations Headquarters this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The documentary tells the story of the August 2023 wildfire that devastated Lahaina and highlights longstanding issues of indigenous sovereignty, access to water, and land stewardship.<\/p>\n<p>Film shared at UN forum<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The story is being shared at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s surreal, for sure. I don\u2019t take this kuleana lightly at all,\u201d Paele Kiakona said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kiakona, representing the Nation of Hawaii and featured in the film, spoke at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Tuesday, drawing connections between Lahaina and indigenous communities worldwide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cMany know our homeland as the 50th state of the United States, but we know it as the Nation of Hawaii,\u201d Kiakona said. \u201cI\u2019m here today to represent my hometown of Lahaina, which in August of 2023 was devastated by wildfire. Lahaina, once the Capitol of the Hawaiian Kingdom, now has the reputation as the place where the deadliest wildfire in recent U.S. history took place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">By his side was De Andre Makakoa, a filmmaker who lost his home in the inferno.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Makakoa said the film is a call to action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cNobody should be waiting until disaster strikes to be engaged in trying to make their community a better place,\u201d Makakoa said. \u201cThey should be building community and engaged with community from the beginning, because like we saw in Lahaina, and like we\u2019re seeing now after the floods, it\u2019s community that\u2019s gonna rise up and have each other\u2019s back at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Executive producer Moses Goods, the Native Hawaiian actor and storyteller featured in Chief of War, is joining the delegation on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThis is something that I think needs to be seen by everyone, and it\u2019s not just the film itself, it\u2019s how the film is told,\u201d Goods said. \u201cExtremely powerful and extremely emotional but it also shows the resiliency and the ability for that community to come together, a message that the world needs right now, how we can come together as a community to kakoo, to support each other and help each other move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/webtv.un.org\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/webtv.un.org\/en\">The events this week can be watched here. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAHAINA (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; The award-winning documentary &#8216;Lahaina Rising&#8216; is showing at United Nations Headquarters this week. The documentary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2472,81543,9,24,55,54,56,81545,81544],"class_list":{"0":"post-205704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-documentary","9":"tag-lahaina","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-united-nations-headquarters","16":"tag-wildfire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}