Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands

12/06/2025

Our most "artistic" Marshallese feature film (with English subtitles) is about the people of Bikini Atoll: most of the actors are Bikinian people. There is a lot of sadness in this film.

The Sound of Crickets at Night (Ainikien Jidjid ilo Boñ)

trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJl2a26b1vM&feature=youtu.be

website
http://www.microwavefilms.org/Crickets.html

Watch commericial-free on YouTube
https://youtu.be/pmgAy_FrmTM?si=yA28YCnM5LsdeA3_

International Awards won by our film:

*WINNER, GRAND HONU AWARD FOR BEST FAMILY FEATURE FILM at the 2013 Big Island Film Festival, Hawaii

*WINNER, GRAND JURY AWARD FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN ACTING (Salome Fakatou), at the 2012 Guam International Film Festival.

*WINNER, ATLANTIC AWARD FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE FILMS at the Moondance International Film Festival in New York City in September of 2012.

*OFFICIAL SELECTION at the prestigious 2012 Hawaii International Film Festival in October of 2012.

*OFFICIAL SELECTION at the prestigious 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May of 2013.

*Opening Night film for the 2013 Pasifika Film Fest in Sydney, Australia.

*On one of the "Top films of 2012" lists on the independent film review website FILM THREAT.

*Selected for the University of Washington Pacific Island Literature & Film course.

*An Official Selection for The 2016 Festival of Pacific Arts Festival in Guam.

*In 2015 it was part of the Concordia College of NY film series.

*The entirety of the works of Microwave Films, including the Sound of Crickets at Night, was featured at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art for the Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art which opened in Brisbane, Australia in November of 2018 and ran until April of 2019.

The Asia Pacific Triennial was initiated by the Queensland Art Gallery in 1993 to focus on extraordinary contemporary art of Asia, the Pacific and Australia. The Asia Pacific Triennial is the Gallery's most internationally recognized project in the field of contemporary art that was attended by over 600,000 people in 2015. In 2015 the APT featured works by 80 artists from over 30 countries. Each APT exhibition includes a major catalogue and extensive p***c programs, including artists talks, panel discussions, performances, and education program and a conference.

THE SOUND OF CRICKETS AT NIGHT (AINIKIEN JIDJID ILO BOÑ) (2012)THE SOUND OF CRICKETS AT NIGHT skillfully balances deadly radiation with the supernatural, fam...

10/06/2025

Energy Heroes from Microwave Films, a short film about the need to conserve power in the RMI.

The first in a series of 3 videos touting the need for the RMI to survive on alternative energy. 2018

09/06/2025

This in an interesting short but powerful (and now very relevant) film we made at Microwave Films a while back. JIMWE IM MARON KO AM (YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS). All performed by children of numerous nationalities from around the island in 3 languages, Marshallese, English and sign language, sponsored by The Pacific Community.

our Human Rights short film from the Marshall Islands in 3 languages: Marshallese, English and sign language.

08/06/2025

08/06/2025

Watch JILEL: THE CALLING OF THE SHELL, our 2014 award winning Marshallese feature film (with English subtitles) about the beauty and the value of the Marshall Islands that was 2 years in the making.

Commercial free film link on You Tube:
https://youtu.be/E8MEYMa6BzM

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EcIrca2VUQ

Website:
https://www.microwavefilms.org/Jilel.html

08/06/2025

This is the trailer for JILEL: THE CALLING OF THE SHELL. Our award winning Marshallese feature film (with English Subtitles.

Trailer
https://youtu.be/0EcIrca2VUQ

Film on You Tube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8MEYMa6BzM

JILEL (The Calling of the Shell). A Global Warming Fairy Tale. JILEL is a heartwarming, heroic story about a young Marshallese girl named Molina who is con...

01/06/2025

BUBU & JIMMA FILMS CREATED FOR BOTH THE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE WORLDS

1. THE SOUND OF CRICKETS AT NIGHT (Ainikien Jidjid ilo Boñ), our most award winning and decorated feature film. It was the opening night film for the Pasifika Film Festival in Australia.
2. ZORI, a short film 9 minutes long, won the Audience Award at the 2013 Guam International Film Festival, and also appeared in the 2013 prestigious Hawaii International Film Festival.
3. JILEL: THE CALLING OF THE SHELL won the Audience Award at the 2014 Guam International Film Festival and appeared in numerous film festivals all over the world, but especially in the Pacific region.

These 3 films were all made in the period from 2012 to 2015. They represented a reach for the "outside world" in our storytelling as they deal with worldwide social issues that encroach or have encroached on the lives of the people of the Marshall Islands (US nuclear weapons testing issues, trash issues, and the quickly unfolding climate change issue). The writing of these stories was both fun and challenging as it was my attempt to write stories that would attempt to appeal to 2 drastically different and diverse cultures at the same time, the major risk with this task being you could lose both audiences if you fail in your storytelling...

1. THE SOUND OF CRICKETS AT NIGHT (Ainikien Jidjid ilo Boñ), our most award winning and decorated feature film. It was the opening night film for the Pasifik...

01/06/2025

THE LIJIMU TRILOGY

These 3 films (Nã Noniep 2009, Yokwe Bartowe 2010, Lañinbiwl's Gift 2011) make up a trilogy of films that involve an older, very powerful woman, Lijimu, who personally struggles between her love of God and church, and her traditional learning and at times the burden of having the ability to cast spells and make traditional medicines.

These 3 films were the very beginning for Suzanne Chutaro and I in our filmmaking. I have always considered myself a "storyteller with a camera," and although we improved in the filmmaking arena as we went along and eventually upgraded our equipment and got better at our directing, etc., in these earlier films the filmmaking side was still a skill in progress.

Most filmmakers begin their careers by making short films, I started with a 1 hour 48 minute feature film starring mostly children, a very daunting endeavor, indeed. When I show all the films to my grandchildren when they reach the age of about 5, they always choose Ña Noniep, our first film, as the movie they liked the most, even though that was when I was trying to figure out how to deal with the camera...

These 3 films (Nã Noniep 2009, Yokwe Bartowe 2010, Lañinbiwl's Gift 2011) make up a trilogy of films that involve an older, very powerful woman, Lijimu, who ...

01/06/2025

1. If Batman were Marshallese
2. BATMoN vs MAJURo trailer
3. BATMoN vs MAJURo feature
4. BATKID OF MONKUBOK trailer
5. BATKID OF MONKUBOK short film
6. ENERGY HEROES

The idea for BATMoN vs MAJURo came when I watched Ben Wakefield (Batmon) in a short 6 second vine on Facebook entitled, "If Batman was Marshallese," which is seen in the first short commercial in this playlist for our 3rd Marshallese Be Like Film Festival from 6 or 7 years back. Ben had done many short vines up until that point, and I was a big fan, I loved his sense of humor, but the Marshallese Batman one had me replaying it over and over, I thought it was so funny and so "Majuro."

From there, because I thought that vine about the Marshallese Batman so funny, I had an idea that maybe Ben and I could make a funny short film before I was due to shoot what I thought was going to be our next feature and a completely different film.

So Ben and I had a lunch one day to discuss the project and we immediately began exchanging ideas about a potential short film, which I started jotting down on a piece of paper. I remember us just laughing out loud as we built on each others ideas.

That lunchtime exchange caused our story to grow and expand. At first as we discussed potential scenes and story ideas, I thought, okay, maybe this film will be 15 minutes, then we would have another exchange of potential humorous situations, and I'd think, okay, maybe this film will be 20 minutes long, more talking, more laughter, maybe a 40 minute film? Then I realized that this film has enough material for a feature length film.

One approach I took with this film without telling anyone was, virtually any idea anyone had and that was brought to my attention, even in an offhand comment, I'd put the scene in the film (I will never do this again). And that put some real stress on our creativity in terms of how to make the story flow.

Early on in the process, Ben and I decided we were not making this film for the outside world, we decided to create a film for those people living in Majuro (where we both live), so the film is heavily nuanced even for some Marshallese, for example, who grew up in the US. You have to know everything about the locations, and the actors, their job positions and their biological relationships to each other in real life, which essentially made this into a cult film. It can still be understood well enough, but you have to watch it more than once to fully understand it. (it is not unusual after the release of a DVD for one of our films to have parents come up to me and say that their kids won't let them put any other DVD in the player. They watch the films over and over and over, and with this film, I got that kind of comment more than any of the other films. Young Marshallese especially loved this film).

Ultimately, BATMoN vs MAJURo morphed into a film about Pacific islanders and their unique mixture of identities and how sometimes individuals have to battle with themselves and others simply because of who they are.

We were constantly laughing while making this film, as you can see in the outtakes at the end. It wasn't easy walking around town and going into local businesses in broad daylight in a Batman outfit for Ben, or in my case, in multi-colored hair extenders and lipstick, but it was so much fun to do. When it opened in Majuro, the first 4 showings had between 350 and 450 people attend each showing.

The BATMoN vs MAJURo feature film led me to make a short film on Ebeye (where the BATMoN vs MAJURo film was extremely popular) for the first time --THE BATKID OF MONKUBOK-- that also featured Ben Wakefield in a cameo appearance.

I worked with group of young teens from the Monkubok weto (a piece of land) on Ebeye on a story as part of a larger art project. I was Secretary of Health at the time and on Ebeye to visit the Ebeye hospital and the staff there.

We wrote the script in one day in a school classroom, and filmed it on the next day. It was a great amount of fun for all of us as I used the young people to do a lot of the directing and actual filmmaking. We then had a showing at the Ebeye gym where we had to replay the film 5 times to a large screaming crowd of people. All of those actors from that film remain friends with me to this day.

The final short film in this playlist is a film concerning energy conservation entitled "Energy Heroes," shot in my house with some relatives of my grandkids. After that film, the Batman mask was put away...

1. If Batman were Marshallese 2. BATMoN vs MAJURo trailer 3. BATMoN vs MAJURo feature 4. BATKID OF MONKUBOK trailer 5. BATKID OF MONKUBOK short film 6. ENERG...

21/05/2025

14 years ago this week, our Marshallese language feature film (with English subtitles), LAÑINBWIL'S GIFT, premiered at the Marshall Islands Resort. This was probably our most popular film with local Marshallese as it is the final installment in the Lijimu Trilogy (though it stands alone as a film) and won numerous awards including BEST OF FESTIVAL at the 2011 Guam International Film Festival.

Here is the YouTube link to the film:
https://youtu.be/boL1El6KoEA

From the front page of the Marshall Islands Journal in May of 2011:

NONIEP vs EVIL MEJENKWAR

A battle between a child Noniep (a fairy) and an angry mejenkwar (a demon), who used the famous legendary Marshallese trickster Letao, unfolded at the Marshall Islands Resort Saturday.

There were impressive personalities engaged in the battle, a pregnant woman possessed by the demon, magically disappearing persons, a suffering homeless kid and a devious Letao causing anguish to all he encountered. Even the famous magic lady known as Lijimu was no match for the combined power of the dastardly mejenkwar and Letao.

This was the premiere of "Laninbwil's Gift," the 99-minute movie produced and directed by Jack Niedenthal and Suzanne Chutaro.

This is also probably our greatest movie poster, imagine this as a sign beside the road advertising the film!

19/05/2025

Morning Comes So Soon (2008)
https://youtu.be/_lxG3G-oLI8
Now on the Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands YouTube Channel!
Please note: this film was not made by Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands, it was made by Small Island Films by Aaron Condon. We show it on this channel with their permission. This is the very first feature film set in the Marshall Islands and was a great inspiration for me. I spent quite a bit of time picking Aaron's brain, I wound up using the same type of camera he did for my earlier films, an old Panasonic SD. -J.M.N.

“The film grabs you and before you know it you’re on a roller coaster ride…Excitement and fun turns to crisis, calamity and tears…”
--Giff Johnson, Marshall Islands Journal

“A milestone production about not only racism but the struggles of young people to cope with their problems in urban Majuro…”
Pacific Magazine

Morning Comes So Soon is a modern love story of a Marshallese boy and a Chinese girl who fall in love in spite of racial prejudice between their families. Reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, but with a twist, this film uses real people living in Majuro, instead of actors. The film was a collaboration between two American volunteer teachers at Catholic Assumption High School, Aaron Condon and Mike Cruz, and a peer education non-profit group.

FILM FESTIVALS:
Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival 2008
Asia Pacific Screen Awards - Official Entry 2008
Hawaii International Film Festival 2008

MORNING COMES SO SOON (2008) (Please note: this film was not made by Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands, it was made by Small Island Films by Aaron Con...

17/05/2025

From 8 years ago, but just posted on YouTube last week:
https://youtu.be/CaP8tg1XM8Y?si=YQHXDDlMWysmyyey