Ohana means...

"Ohana mens family, family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten.."

- Source

As I´ve grown up, I´ve learned that there is no such thing as a “normal family". Every family has its own struggles and every family relationship are different from one another. This is one of the main things that I really liked about the two “Ohana means …” short films I got to watch at the 38th Annual Hawaii international Film Festival Presented by Halekulani. The two films showed the variations in a family and in family relationships, and even though this only was two perspectives, I believe that there is someone who watches that can relate to one of these.

The first short film, “My Little Brother, Seung-Hyuk” is a touching film about a boy and his brother, who experience their parents splitting up and because of this – they will be split up to join each parent. The film was one of the “Ohana means …” shorts at the 38th Annual Hawaii International Film Festival Presented by Halekulani. Seung-hyek realizes that his mom is about to leave home with his brother Min-hyuk and not with himself. Min-hyuk struggles with going to school by himself, and because of this he is going with his mother. To avoid this, Seung-hyek sends his brother to school by himself to prove that he can go by himself and do not has to be the one leaving with their mother.

"My Little Brother, Seung-Hyuk" directed by Kim Deok-Geun

We don´t get to know anything about the background history or why the brother doesn´t want to, or don´t manage, to go to school by himself, but as a viewer you definitely can

make your own conclusions for reasons why. There wasn´t a lot of conversation in the film, but the short sentences and the music sat the mood and made it interesting to watch.

“Floating weeds” was the second short film I watched. The film is about a boy who has grown apart from his father after his mother´s death. One day when the boy is out fishing, he meets an old man who ends up becoming his friend. I kind of believe that the two men empathized with each other due to similar experiences – since the old man´s wife had also “left town”, as they used as an expression in the film. During the film we see that the old man teaches the boy a lot about fishing, and in some way - about life. The film leaves a lot of room to interpret what the meaning behind every gesture is, or how everything ends for the boy and the old man.

"Floating weeds" written and directed by Jimbo Lee