This Is the Way We Rise
2020 · 12m · United States
Directed by Ciara Lacy
Genres: biography, documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, provocative, tender
Native Hawaiian slam poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio rediscovers her creative voice through her calling to protect the sacred sites atop Mauna Kea.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
This should be a straightforward activism doc, but Lacy refuses the sermon—she lets Osorio's slam poetry do the heavy lifting, which is precisely the move that makes it weird and alive instead of righteous.
A formally sophisticated essay film that understands the lineage of Indigenous documentary and poetic nonfiction, executing its layering of voice, landscape, and resistance with considered restraint.
The decision to center Osorio's own language—her poetry as the primary text, not voiceover—transforms what could be a standard environmental story into something that trusts the specificity of one voice to carry the entire spiritual and political weight.