Mourning Call (working title) is an experimental hybrid documentary film about bird extinctions in the islands of Hawai’i, about the efforts by biologists to conserve these species, together with efforts by Kanaka Maoli (native Hawaiian) culture bearers to revive the spirt of native birds through Oli, or ritual chants. The film follows one species in particular, the ‘Alalā, or Hawaiian Crow, whose plight illuminates the complex interweavings of extinction and resilience, mourning and revival that characterize our planetary life in the Anthropocene.

Mourning Call follows two overlapping trajectories in the Hawaiian ecosystem. First, there are the biologists involved in recovery ecology, whose efforts are set against the background reality that extinction may be inevitable for many of the species they study and care for. The film explores the affective space of this work, where a knowledge of loss travels in tandem with the wonder of knowing a species deeply, becoming a felt duty to accompany another creature into death, as witness and shepherd. The film traces this work at the Maui Bird Conservation Center, as well as the Listening Observatory for Hawaiian Ecosystems in Hilo, directed by Dr. Patrick Hart.

The film’s second trajectory involves the group ʻĀhuimanu (‘cluster of birds’ in Hawaiian language), whose ongoing project is to revive the sounds of native birds, many already extinct, into the repertoire of contemporary Hawaiian chant, or Oli. Many Oli narrate Hawaiian mythology and cosmology, in which creatures from the land, the sea and the air are joined in the creation of the world. These chants often conjure these creatures through vocal imitation, with bird species being of special importance through their calls and songs. The film posits a special power of rebirth and rejuvenation, both cultural and environmental, in this act of vocal embodiment of another species—a will to invoke its vitality and a resistance against the dying of its life-world. Patrick Hart has been working with ʻĀhuimanu to provide recordings of extinct species for the group to learn, vocalize and incorporate into new Oli. In Hart’s words, "I see it as a form of ancient poetry that helps connect us with the space that we're in…it’s basically the way that humans have been interacting with the environment and plants and animals here forever.”

Mourning Call weaves documentary footage with fictionalized scenes based on real events, ritual performance with scientific field work into a multi-modal exploration of interspecies knowing and the cultivation of a new imaginary for the planetary future that merges hope and loss, care and decline, progress and memorial.