A row of four women face away from the camera, each wearing black and yellow with long, wavy black hair. Laurels for festivals are listed at the bottom, including: Seattle International Film Festival, HotDocs, and DocNYC.

Standing Above
the Clouds

Directed by Jalena Keane-Lee

When a massive Thirty Meter Telescope is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, an uprising of kiaʻi (protectors) in Hawaiʻi and around the world dedicate their lives to protecting the sacred mountain from further destruction.

Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, Standing Above the Clouds explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions.

Executive Produced by
Multitude Films.

2024 / 83 minutes

About
the Team

An Asian woman with light-medium skin and dark brown hair smiles softly at the camera in front of a light pink background. She wears gold earrings and holds her hands to her face, with crescent moons tattooed on her forearm.

Jalena Keane-Lee — Director, Producer, Cinematographer
Jalena is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing through an intersectional lens. She was named a 2023 Adobe x Sundance Woman to Watch and is the recipient of the Gotham Documentary Fellowship, Creative Culture Woman Filmmaker Fellowship, Wyncote Fellowship and NeXt Doc Fellowship. Jalena is the winner of Tribeca Through Her Lens 2020 and DocPitch 2022. Her short films have streamed on POV and Criterion Collection, played at over 50 film festivals, and won best short at LA Asian Film Festival in 2020 and the Jury Award at Sundance in 2023. Jalena co-founded Breaktide Productions, an all-women-of-color production company that has won two Cannes Lion awards for branded content.

A woman with medium-tan skin stands with her arm resting on her side. She has long, dark brown hair and wears a black sweatshirt and jeans. She stands in front of an orange yellow gradient background.

Amber Espinosa-Jones — Producer
Amber is a creative producer and DEIA strategist from Oakland, CA. She is a 2024 ArtEquity BIPOC Leader, 2022 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader, and recently produced the feature film STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS following Native-Hawaiian mother-daughter activists executive produced by Multitude Films. Amber currently serves as Senior Manager of Artist + Audience Impact at Sundance Institute overseeing strategy and granting programs for marginalized artists and audiences. With a diverse background in theatre and film, Amber is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Dramatic Arts and Media Arts + Practice programs with an interest in social change and collaborative community building.

A woman with lightly tanned skin smiles in front of a gray background. She has long, straight brown hair and wears a necklace and earrings.

Erin Lau — Producer
Erin has dedicated her life to creating empathy-forward stories for her community. Her work stretches across mediums — ranging from documentaries to branded content and scripted films. After completing her Bachelors at the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Erin went on to receive her MFA in directing from Chapman University. Since graduating, Erin has signed with the United Talent Agency (UTA) and continued her growth with the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, Nia Tero, Points North Institute, Tribeca Studios, NBC, MTV, and more. Over the past decade, her projects have screened across the world in over 50 film festivals, while her work for Jubilee Media has accumulated over 130 million online views.

An Asian woman with tan skin smiles at the camera. She has long black hair parted to the side and wears long yellow and red earrings and a green top. Her hair has blonde highlights at the tips.

Diana Diroy — Editor
Diana Diroy is a documentary filmmaker, editor, and cinematographer. Diroy, a Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab Fellow (2022), is currently editing the feature documentary, Standing Above the Clouds. In 2019, she edited the short version of the film, which won Best Documentary Short at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. She also recently edited the feature documentary, Fire Through Dry Grass, a film about a group of disabled artists living on a small island in NYC, fighting COVID and the city to protect the lives of 500 vulnerable nursing home residents. Diroy was selected for the 2021-22 Sundance Art of Editing Fellowship and the Karen Schmeer Diversity in the Edit Room Program in 2018. Her work reflects her interests in social and environmental justice, activism, immigration, gender, and identity. Diroy is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area and continuously strives to collaborate and make magic with other creatives locally and remotely.

T.J. Keanu Tario (Laritza Labouche) — Composer
A native of Nuʻuanu, Oʻahu, T.J. is a kanaka maoli classical pianist, film composer, cultural practitioner by day, and drag artist by night. A graduate of The Juilliard School, and The California Institute of the Arts. Their compositions have been performed by ensembles including the New York Youth Symphony & the Attacca String Quartet. Performances for the concert stage include “Capriccio” for One Piano - Four Hands, commissioned by the Aloha International Piano Festival, and premiered by Lisa Nakamichi & Jon Nakamatsu (Gold Medalist at the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.) T.J. was a part-time faculty at The University of Southern California. Workshopping a newly composed musical regarding the overthrow and imprisonment of our Queen Liliʻuokalani. The musical was a recent semi-finalist of the Eugene O’Neil National Musical Theatre Conference and is still in the process of being edited and one day produced. Past performances include performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in drags with the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra, and through the LIFT Native Arts & Cultures Foundation fellowship premiered Hawaiian Ballet “E aha ia ana ʻO Mauna Kea” at the Leeward Community College Theatre - a work that brings continued awareness to the Protect Mauna Kea movement. Current exhibit premieres include the 8x8: Source exhibit at the Shangri La Museum Doris Duke Foundation. More of T.J.’s music can be found at lalamusicstudio.com.

Co-Producer
Pua Case

Executive Producers
Jess Devaney
Anya Rous
Ruth Ann Harnisch

Consulting Producer
Ciara Lacy
Bhawin Suchak

Three Hawai'ian women sit in front of a garden-like shrine. The woman in the center has big aubin hair and wears a dark blue dress with a red sash and a soft smile on her face. The woman on the left has a tan complexion and dark brown hair, and wears
A woman with dark brown hair pulled in a bun leans down to kiss dark rocks. .She holds onto a rock with one hand, decorated with jewelry. She wears a black and gray coat and a thin headband circling her head.
Five women face away from the camera, each with long curly hair. The woman in the center wears a bright yellow dress. The four women besides her wear black tops and a yellow sash.
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