A portion of a documentary film-in-progress titled “A Journey to Rediscover the Buddhist Treasures of Hawaiçi,” will be screened at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Imin Center-Jefferson Hall on the East-West Center campus.
The film follows Hawaiçi architect and historic preservation expert Lorraine Minatoishi-Palumbo as she examines aging Buddhist temples. Minatoishi-Palumbo and documentarians Bill Ferehawk and Dylan Robertson will attend the free preview — four excerpts totaling about 20 minutes — to discuss the film with audience members.
The film depicts the temples as architectural markers with an East-West combination that reveals the peculiar history of a transplanted Japanese Buddhism. For example, Minatoishi-Palumbo explains in the film why the Honpa Hongwanji headquarters, built with both white Taj Mahal minarets and Western style church pews, represents radical changes that were occurring in the 1920s.