Filmmaker, writer and producer G.B. Hajim has been working recently on a film set on the Big Island.
Big Island Times had the opportunity to interview the director and ask him about his new film, "Mermaids' Lament."
"I’ve been living on the Hamakua Coast for almost 30 years. I always have tried to jump-start the film industry here while working in Hawaiian language media," Hajim told Big Island Times.
Hajim said that after he and fellow Big Islanders finished his last film in 2012, "Strange Frame" -- starring Tim Curry, Claudia Black, Tara Strong and Cree Summer, distributed by Wolfe Media -- his next project would be a production set on the Big Island.
"My next project was supposed to be a horror comedy set on the Hamakua Coast but shot in Colombia due to the tax credits available there, but COVID hit and the financing dried up," Hajim said. "I was in an online workshop via Creative Lab Hawaii with Sean Baker ("Tangerine") back in March of this year, and he basically said to me to stop waiting and make a movie with what I had. 'Mermaids’ Lament' is that film."
Hajim said a quick summary of the movie is: "A woman drowning in trauma takes a therapist beyond her own depth into the darkness, and together they find the surface and the sun."
"It's about two women: One who suffered an incredible trauma that left her mute -- and she may or may not be a mermaid," Hajim said. "The other, a therapist who has crippling anxiety, is trying to help the first woman overcome her delusions of being a mermaid and fit better in the world. They end up helping each other out and finding a middle ground because the world is crazy, and we need a little mermaid inside each of us to cope."
The filmmaker explained his personal connection to the upcoming film.
"My son has crippling anxiety. I have it to a lesser extent as well. The one place he has never felt it is in the ocean," Hajim said. "We swim with sharks, whales, dolphins. We swim miles offshore, and he's never had that problem. On land, he has to take multiple medications. I found others that deal with anxiety and trauma with ocean therapy, with 'mermaiding,' with freediving. Our production team worked together from our own personal experiences with eating disorders, trauma, sexual assault and anxiety to develop this narrative film to show a different side of this struggle and a different solution."
The film is now in post-production and scheduled for release in 2022.