 Now, the making of Scaling Up here on ThinkDeck, I'm Jay Fidel, five o'clock block. And guess what? We have Kimberly Basterdon. Hi, Kimberly. Kimberly is a filmmaker, right? Yes, hi, Jay. Thanks for having me today. Absolutely. We were working with you on Scaling Up, Hawaii's food future, which just got finished, and which is a film festival, HIFF, HIF. I guess it's HIF, right? It was selected for HIF, and it's going to play in May on PBS Hawaii. Isn't that something? Don't you think so? I think so. I remember us having a conversation last March, and now we've got a finished film. And it's going to be having its premiere at the film festival and at PBS Hawaii. So it's really great. Actually, this is a pretty quick turnaround for documentary films in general. Some of my other projects have taken four to six years. So one year is pretty good. I would not done either. You got a note from a German film festival, and they wanted you to submit it. And that was something. And so we submitted it to a German film festival. Are you ready to go to Germany? I think it might be an online festival, but I would love to go to Germany. So yes, let's get it into some German film festivals. Anyone out there from Germany would like to invite us. Yeah, well, they're probably all watching now, Kim. So why do you think that the German film festival wrote to you about it? I mean, maybe it was just they caught it, but they said they caught it. They said they watched it. They said they liked it. They said they wanted you to submit it to them. There must be a reason. What about this film would appeal to a German film festival? I'm not exactly sure, but I think they saw it in the program on the HIF website. And I believe their festival has a theme of climate change this year. So I'm not sure if maybe it just piqued their interest, because it looked like it was an environmentally related film, a story from Hawaii, the other side of the world. And I'm not really sure you'd have to ask their programmer who invited us. But we'll see how that plays out. So scaling up Hawaii's food future, this is an important topic in the sense that we have been struggling since the day of the plantation, the day of the end of the plantation with trying to figure out how to feed Hawaii's people. We haven't done it yet, but there's a lot of talk about it and a lot of possibility about it. This film, where does this film stand in that public conversation? Well, I think the goal of the film was to trigger conversations to hopefully bring the stakeholders together to have these discussions. I mean, it's a 27 minute film, and so it can't have everything there is to be about agriculture. It's history where we are and where we're going. It's really trying to provide sort of an overview and some talking points for people to then hopefully have those deeper conversations. But we were looking at agriculture broadly in terms of how to feed our islands in terms of sustainability issues, but as well as how to just grow the sector to bring in more income so that we don't have to rely so much on tourism. So we're also looking at some of the new agricultural exports that some very entrepreneurial folks are trying to pursue. So I think it's a really good overview, and hopefully people watch it and will have a lot of questions and will want to talk about it and that we as a community will want to talk about the issues that the film brings up. But in some ways, it might raise more question than present answers. It's true. It's the whole thing about the legs on the stool. When I arrived in Hawaii, there were three legs. There was the plantations. There was the military, and there was tourism. And the military is what it is. The plantations went away, and tourism becomes most of the legs on the stool. But we have to get back to technology, which is all the rage 30 years ago and simply hasn't gone where we hoped. And of course, agriculture, which we have lots of assets and resources for. And you covered that. You also covered a number of legislators who would like to see it happen, who plan to have it happen. And maybe just maybe in there somewhere is what they call it political will. And to me, that's really important about this film and about the next film that we are going to do, right? Which is a new technology, the new ideas, the ones that come and make it easier for local kids to get their hands in the soil and produce entrepreneurial experiences that actually earn a living. You touched on that in the film. A lot of people talked about that in the film, yeah? Correct, correct. That technology can hold some keys to a less. I mean, one of the things that we found in the film is that just labor in Hawaii, the labor accounts for so much of farmers' expenses for the expenses of local farms, much more so than in a place like California. So I think technology can help reduce that and also just create more productive yields. So it is something that we need to explore more of and could help the sector grow. You talked about these boutique crops such as a chocolate and rum and the like from sugar and the combination of the two. It's really interesting and really creative. And I had this vision when the food supply and the ships that come to Hawaii with all the food dry up, I will live on chocolate. Chocolate and rum. Yeah, I don't know if that'll help the diabetes and obesity crisis that is also around. But no, yeah, it's interesting. Like that was sort of kind of fun in the process with trying to find some of the new agricultural exports. And chocolate and rum aren't the only ones. You know, there's tea, there's Olenna, there's some other crop breadfruit. So there's some other crops that people are exploring. But yeah, it just so happened we ended up following chocolate and rum. And then there happened to be a synergy there because they're the two companies that we ended up following. They ended up they worked together in creating chocolate, chocolate flavored rum and rum flavored chocolate. Well, I think that would that really taught me something. I think it will teach everyone who watches the film something they didn't know about chocolate and about rum and about chocolate flavored rum. It's that the people who are doing this are entrepreneurs in the fullest extent. They really know how to work. They know how to make a product that nobody's made. They know how to sell that product. And if you apply that same kind of entrepreneurial spirit to other areas of agriculture and aquaculture, we will be able to go a long distance. Don't you think you discovered that in this film? Yes, yes, I very much did. Yes, those folks, you know, I think the big metaphor in the film is sort of business plans. And I think, you know, one of our characters, Jason Brand of Kohanda Rum, he said, you know, just as an island, we haven't put our business plans together yet. There's all these people working on agriculture, trying to, you know, create new products, trying to grow their farms from small to midsize to large. And everyone's just sort of working in silos. And so the idea of, you know, working together and having a coordinated effort, I think is really important. So, yeah, yeah, that was something. And that also sort of inspired the title of the film, Scaling Up and looking at what are the ways we can scale up. Yeah, well, these, they were very impressive and their work is impressive. And I see them as just starting out and, you know, the film is going to reveal them and maybe popularize them and maybe give them a leg up on doing more and not necessarily limited to these boutique crops, the value-added crops. And you also covered, you know, what Senator Dela Cruz is working on, which he's been working on, he's been a supporter of agriculture for a long time. Can you talk about that? I think that worked out very well to try to show that the legislature is behind this. The legislature has plans. It may not be able to realize the plans right away, but there are people who are champions in the legislature who want to see it happen. That was also a discovery. Yes, yes. So we spend time with Senator Donovan Dela Cruz who represents, you know, Central Oahu, Oahuwahua and that area. And, you know, he has a vision for that community. He's very much connected to it as someone who grew up there and now represents that district. And I mean, they're definitely in the middle of it. They've been working on it for years and they're creating a new value-added center, which will be in Oahuwah. They're trying to get more of the state land, you know, into getting leases for farmers, getting the land to have the infrastructure needed. So it's very, there's a lot of parts to it. And I mean, the thing that was interesting to me is that like, you know, he was saying there's all of these parts and he's trying to kind of bring everyone together because there isn't an entity that does so already. So it's a very coordinated effort that has to happen. It's not just something that Department of Agriculture can do on its own, you know, it involves them, it involves education, it involves, you know, the Agricultural Development Corporation, it needs leadership. So it really is like you need someone sort of bringing everyone together and managing it. And, you know, he kind of, it seems like he's stepping into that role, but, you know, in other communities, I don't know who is playing that role. So I think that goes back to the idea of, you know, coming together and creating a holistic business plan all together as an island and as a state. Well, I think that was a takeaway for me that it needs a business plan. It needs a statewide business plan. It needs people who are gonna continue to advocate for it. And we're talking about leadership. We're talking about continuing leadership. You know, I think we learned something in the tech experience because ultimately the tech sector didn't happen. And, you know, it's really too bad. It might have, but now it's kind of too late. Agriculture can still happen. And your film showed that it's, we're kind of at an inflection point. And that maybe, just maybe, this kind of, what do you call it, film rhetoric? Can I say that? This kind of film rhetoric will achieve some kind of political will. And so it's important to repeat it. You know what they say in Rome? In Rome, they say, which means that repetition is the mother of learning. Oh, nice. I hadn't heard that one. Well, you went to Harvard. How come you didn't pick that up? I don't know. You know, it's the necessities of the mother of invention. I don't think I've heard repetition as the mother of learning, but no, that makes sense. Yeah. So how was it? You worked on this film during COVID, which was no small challenge. And, you know, we here at Think Tech and our ordinary shows, we learned to do everything by Zoom, you know, which is very important for us and open new horizons. But you use regular cameras, which got really good production values and sound and color correction and all that. And you did it in the time of COVID. Can you give us a little window into how you did that? Well, you know, I wanted the film to look its best if possible. And also, you know, I knew that since we were talking about agriculture and farming, that we could do a lot of the interviews outside so that, you know, we could work with sort of the constraints of COVID. So I thought, let's do it. But I do remember you, Jay, last year saying, oh, why don't you do them all via Zoom? And I was like, well, maybe we could try to do them in person. But that said, you know, it was, there were some challenges with COVID. You know, we originally wanted to speak with farmers and entrepreneurs and folks outside of Oahu. And I was talking to the folks out at Nelha in the Big Island because there's these amazing aquaculture entrepreneurs and companies out there. And we were planning to film and then the Delta variant hit. So we ended up just filming on Oahu. But yeah, you know, I think documentary filmmakers were very nimble. And we tend to work with very, you know, very lean resources and lean crews. So we were able to get it done during the pandemic, regardless. But if we had the time and the budget and, you know, travel had been more open, it would have been nice to get to Maui, get to the Big Island, get to Kauai and sort of profile some of the folks there and what they're doing. Well, you know, if you had done that, who knows who might be writing you today from every country in the world asking you to submit the film to the film festival. But, you know, the film is really good. Clearly a success. It's watchable. It's educational. It's appealing at every level, both at the local level, at the academic level, at the scientific level, at the legislative level. So you really covered all the bases and I really appreciate that. I think it worked out well and it exposes one notion I want to run by you. And that is this. Filmmakers, you know, we want the filmmaker community, especially the documentary filmmaker community to blossom and flourish in this state. Why? It's because, you know, if you look at Frontline, I'm sure you do, it's a PBS affair. You know, they will take a series of events that happened fairly recently and make it into a documentary and that way you can connect the dots and the repetition is the mother of learning and you can see all the dots all together and now you understand the trajectory of these events. So you can't do that on the six o'clock news, I'm sorry. It's very hard to do it even in 30 minutes but if you have a lot of these films and from a lot of filmmakers, not just one and you keep on doing it, after a while it permeates the thought process. It permeates the public conversation here and elsewhere. It provides a brand for us, a profile, an identity for Hawaii and then people will get the idea that agriculture should be something we focus on, politically, economically, fiscally in the government and so forth. So it becomes a political instrument and we should do more of it, more documentaries about more documentary subjects. Don't you agree? Sounds good, sign me up. I mean, I've already been doing that. So yeah, I definitely agree in the power of film and it's not just film for film's sake but really to, like I said, start conversations and create change, right? The change that we want to see. So films can definitely play a role in that and I hope this film will. How can we build a film sector? You know, the discussion for as long as I can remember 20 years plus about trying to do that but how can we do it stepping forward? How can we build the film sector that has all these important subjects that creates political will that changes the nature of the state for the better? How can we do that? Well, I don't know. That's a big question. And like you said, we've been working on it for a while. I think the state's focus when it comes to the film industry has always been on the large productions, you know, like the big attracting Hollywood productions to town and having them come here and that, you know, will create economic impact. And that's all true. I work in a very different sector of the film industries and in documentary and it would be great to have more funding for documentaries and more funding for, you know, more support for films like this that really speak directly to community issues and issues in Hawaii. So I don't know, but it'd be great to have more funding more funding for local filmmakers. It makes me the perfect segue to the Spark Fund Award. Oh, okay, yes. And we have a photograph of that. There it is, there it is. We've been playing it because it's very important. So what is the Spark Fund and what is the Spark Fund Award? And how do I get one? Well, you know, I'm honored to be a recipient of the Firelight Media Spark Fund Award. It is a one-time award that Firelight Media, they are a nonprofit organization based out of New York City that supports filmmakers of color really, documentary filmmakers of color. And it supports them in many different ways. They have lots of different professional development programs. And I've always wanted to be part of the Firelight community. So I'm really excited to be a part of this program. But I applied and I was selected and the Funding for the Spark Program is actually from the National Endowment for the Humanities. And NEH, when the pandemic hit, they saw a need to support documentary filmmakers who were telling stories that were humanities based. So they gave, they partnered with three film organizations. Firelight Media is one of them. The Sundance Institute is another and ITVS, the Independent Television Service is another. And the three of them were given, were able to distribute some monies and they each created their own program. But all of them are about supporting documentary filmmakers who have been impacted by the pandemic and who are working on humanities based stories. What's really great about the Spark Fund though is it's not project funding, it's really funding to support the filmmakers. So to help them cover their living expenses, so they can focus on their films. Because it is so challenging to cobble together a living as a doc filmmaker, you end up having to teach their freelance and other projects or work on commercial. And you had to do that. I have, I have. And so in a way, having this award for a year, it's a one year award, it comes with a stipend, allows me to not have to take on some of those other things that I do and just really be able to focus on my films this year. That's great. That's great. So that would be great to have in the state. You're asking ideas like supporting, supporting artists, supporting storytellers. So they're not constantly like fundraising because, you know, I'm not, I was not trained to be a fundraiser. I don't know that I'm very good at it. Nobody in this universe was trained to be a fundraiser. Yeah. And it's just a matter of, you know, I mean, some societies are, there are societies out there that support artists more and in the US it's a little bit challenging. Well, that takes me to the Cook Foundation which supported in substantial part the making of our film, you know, about agriculture and that was very nice of them. And you got to give these local organizations credit for putting some grant money together for films like this one. Yes. And I think, well, we need to shout out to them but we need to also say that, you know, more local foundation type organizations could do this and should do this because it's, yes, it's giving you a life, you know, where you don't have to, you know, hurry for the money, hustle for the money. And it's also encouraging documentary films about issues that are important to our state and thus having an effect on public policy. And so there were at least two reasons why a local organization such as Cook Foundation should give grants for films like this one. Yes, I agree. And there are, you know, local foundations that do like Cook Foundation and I'm very grateful to them for funding this project and to the others that do support local filmmakers and projects here. So, but yeah, we would be great to have more. Let's talk also about another possibility for you. And it is the shifting voices film fund. What is that? And what has it got to do with you and Hawaii? Well, I guess it has to do with Hawaii because I'm one of the semifinalists for this grant and it's an initiative, another funding initiative that is being spearheaded by Chicago Media Project and the Mescla Collective and they're both based out of Chicago. And they're looking to support BIPOC stories. So stories and filmmakers about black, indigenous people of color looking to, you know, I think right now in our industry as well as across the nation there's a lot more attention to diversity and inclusion and storytellers from marginalized communities. So they've been trying to support filmmakers who are telling stories from these kinds of communities. And yeah, so I applied for project funding and I was one of the, I'm one of the semifinalists so I had to do a pitch recently online. And then if I make it to the finals I'll have a chance to go to Chicago to pitch the project in front of industry decision makers and financiers. So we'll see. But I mean, there were a lot of great projects. It's hard. It's so hard because you feel like, you know there's so many, all of those films are worthy of being made and having supported in a way we're all sort of competing against one another. And, you know, but that's sort of life. That's how capitalism is set up, right? It's all a competition. Well, nonprofits are part of capitalism and filmmakers are part of capitalism too. Yeah, yes, yes. It's the reality. But yeah, so I'm hoping that, you know I'll find out at the end of the month whether or not I've advanced. But even if I haven't it was great honor to make it to the semifinals. Absolutely, it's a great honor. And so I hope you let us know how it goes and we can have a further discussion about that, you know? Sure. You're on a roll, Kimberly. So let's go back to, let's go back to, you know Patsy Mink because Patsy Mink was a film you did. It had a certain amount of notoriety and it was a very, the film was very well received. Can you talk about why you did that film and how you did that film and what happened with that film? Sure. That was my first film really out of graduate school and it was a historical biography about the late congresswoman Patsy Mink from Hawaii. She was our longtime congresswoman for many, many years. She served 24 years total in the US Congress and also served in the territorial house and Senate and whatnot. But I was really interested in telling her story because I recall when she passed away like that's when I learned about her story and the fact that she was such a trailblazer. You know, she was the very first woman of color to serve in the US Congress and she also was the co-author of Title IX which is a landmark gender equity legislation that really opened up the doors to education for America's women. A lot of people think of Title IX in relationship to athletics but it was really about academics and education as a whole. So, I mean, when I heard that Patsy was involved in Title IX, not just involved she was the driving force behind it and that she was, you know, a trailblazer. I was just so fascinated personally by her story that I thought somebody should do a film about her and then it was a couple of years later that I came home and I was thinking of what I wanted to do my first project on and I kept coming back to her story. I mean, I want to do say that it's also, you know, that was, so I started on the film in 2004. So this was sort of on the heels of, you know, things going on politically with like Bush v. Gore and whatnot and what I saw in Patsy too was that she was sort of, I was sort of figuring out my own political identity and I really just admired the kind of politician she was where she was really, seemed to be a true servant of the people and really about the work that she was doing. So yeah, for so many reasons I wanted to do the film, I do a film on her. So yeah, that film took four years and it was released in 2008. So it is now 14 years old, but it's fun because I'm still getting requests and especially this year because it is the 50th anniversary of Title IX. So I think more people are discovering her story and her involvement in Title IX and I think that's really great for all of us but especially here in Hawaii because we should really, you know, feel proud that she came here. And I think Hawaii made her who she was. I mean, especially Maui, she was a Maui girl and that was so much of who she was and how she saw the world, so. Well, it's part of that documentary genre where you celebrate a successful public official. And I think she was a successful public official. She did a lot in Washington. She did a lot for Hawaii, did a lot for women. And it was a worthy celebration. It's historic. It's like the Burns approach to history, right? And I think that film has a certain, you know, to me a certain connection with the Burns approach and good for you to do something historic that actually brings Hawaii together behind an important public official who did achieve a lot of things. And I suppose there's more in the wings there. I mean, for example, Ben Inouye. That could be a great film about, you know, a guy who did a lot for Hawaii. Somebody will do that. Who knows who will do that. Yeah, there actually was a documentary about him, but I'm sure there could be another and I'm sure there might be another Patsy Mink film, right? Like these are significant historical figures now and they deserve, you know, much attention. So in the remaining minutes, I have a couple of other questions I want to put to you. Number one is, gee whiz, you have these various genres and looking forward, I'm sure that you think about this all the time. What is going to be your main track? Are you going to be doing the Burns thing? Historic figures, historic things about Hawaii? Are you going to be doing, you know, the thing about the economy, the thing about a current examination, the examination of how we're doing right now, maybe with a glimpse into the future to suggest ways we should improve ourselves? Are you going to be doing more activist type of films? May I say that? May I say that? Into the future, what's your trajectory, Kim, or have you not decided yet? I can't see into the future, but I find that I have done a lot of different kinds of films and sort of after I do a historical film for while I just want to do a very contemporary, what we call Verite film, where you're following someone, you know, contemporary. And then after I do that, I feel like I want to go back to history. So I have interests all over there. And I don't know, I think, I mean, I'm working on a few right now and they also are a diverse group of films. So we'll see. Okay, yes, we'll see. It's a non-committal answer for you. I think, you know, I keep it all open. I don't think I just want to do one genre, I think. And also helps you grow as a filmmaker too, to sort of expand what you do and then also keeps things interesting. I mean, one reason I went into film too is I wanted every day to be different. And I wanted to be able to do lots of different things. I feel like with film, I use right brain and left brain, right? It's creative, but yet you have to raise money. You have to keep track of budgets. It's organizational. So it's very, very varied. So if we take just looking at scaling up with the agriculture film you just finished and the one we worked on together, and I'm happy about that because you were great to work with. We talked a lot, we shared ideas and you were very interested and respectful of the ideas that we shared. And so it was really all in all a great experience. But query, what did you learn from that as a filmmaker? What did you, aside from what you might have learned about the individuals you talk with, the issues you covered, of course, but what did you learn as a filmmaker from that particular experience? That is a good question. I mean, I think it reminded me that I can film and edit because for that film, we had a cinematographer, but there were a couple of shoots you couldn't make. So I ended up having to film and do the interview and then I edited it and then we outsourced the finishing. But some of my other projects, I usually would have a bigger budget trying to work with others. And so it was kind of nice to do it, to be hands-on in all parts. I mean, there's drawbacks to it, but I think that gave me confidence again that I can produce, write, direct and edit if I need to. Well, I'm always appreciative of Robert Pennyback or at PBS who put us together originally. I didn't know you, and now I feel that that was a great gift that he gave us to introduce us to you. Yeah, shout out to Robert. So now I have my favorite question to ask you, Kenny. Can you handle it? What's your favorite film of all these films that you've made? Oh, gosh. Well, you know, I don't know. I mean, I'm, besides this one, I'm actually finishing up a short documentary about Honolulu Chinatown. And that one's a little different because I'm in it. I'm not on camera, but I narrate it. And so it's a little bit more of a personal take because my family has connections to Chinatown. I'm half Chinese and in the film, you know, it's really, it's looking at Chinatown today during the COVID pandemic and 122 years ago during the bubonic plague and looking at the parallels of how public health crises have impacted this iconic neighborhood and have, you know, sparked fear and racism. But I tell the story through me and through some of the folks who are in Chinatown now, but also through some of the things I found about my great-grandfather who lived through that bubonic plague and the fire that happened. So it's a little bit kind of like my love letter to Chinatown and I feel very connected to it because I'm in a way, I'm more connected to it than I guess any of the other films I've done, right? Like I didn't know Patsy Mink, but I got to know her family through it and I didn't know much about farming. A lot of the other films I had to learn about and doing them and this was one that was very close to home. So I guess if you are gonna make me choose one of my films to highlight, I might say it's that one, but that one, it's not done yet, it's almost there. So that'll be the next film to come out after scaling up is my Chinatown. We have to cover and I can't wait to see it. I feel also strongly, I am not Chinese, I wanna reassure you, but I may convert one day. In any event, I have a special affinity for Chinatown and I will look forward to seeing that. Okay, we should have another conversation about that. When I touch a little bit on some of the contemporary issues like the crime and homelessness, but that's not the focus of the film. It's really sort of, yeah. Kind of, I really wanted to just focus on what makes our Chinatown special. So. Oh, that's great. A great subject and you're the person. Well, thank you very much. Kimberly Bastford, our filmmaker for Scaling Up a Wise Food Future, which has just premiering at HIF and which is gonna be on PBS on May. May 19th, Jay. And at HIF it's a screening online April 15th through the 24th. Okay. Thank you very much, Kim. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Talk soon. Aloha. Okay, bye. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.