Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jude Weng’s Finding Ohana

Published on November 17, 2020

This year’s Wendy might be a film from another far off destination in Hawaii. Jude Weng‘s directorial debut Finding Ohana is a film about treasures beyond pots of gold and is populated by non-actor talents who look the part (and specifically the two leads in Kea Peahu and Alex Aiono) this also includes Marc Evan Jackson, Lindsay Watson, Owen Vaccaro, Kelly Hu, Ke Huy Quan, Ricky Garcia, Ryan Higa, Mapuana Makia, Brad Kalilimoku, X Mayo, and Kyndra Sanchez. Netflix grabbed the family action-adventure film and not too long after, Weng saw Amazon Studios attached themselves to what will be her sophomore film – Shelly. Weng comes from the television world – most notably, Young Sheldon.

Gist: Written by Christina Strain, this follows two Brooklyn siblings (Kea Peahu and Alex Aiono) whose summer in a rural Oahu town takes an exciting turn when a journal pointing to long-lost treasure sets them on an adventure, leading them to reconnect with their Hawaiian heritage.

Production Co./Producers: Ian Bryce Productions’ Ian Bryce.

Prediction: KIDS

U.S. Distributor: Netflix.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).