A Paradise Lost - Director Laurie Sumyie

A PARADISE LOST is the enchanting, yet harrowing tale of the yellow finch of Palila v. Hawaii, a landmark case where nature took humanity to court to stave off extinction. The film unfolds through the POV of the animated Palila called Anuenue who stood as the client in 1979 court trials. The legal battle leveraged the Endangered Species Act to protect mamane forests where 2,500 Palila competed with introduced sheep & goats. He explains how they won in court, but are still in jeopardy; in 2024, only 300 Palila remain. Today, a Native Hawaiian conservationist struggles to save them amidst escalating threats of climate change, wildfires, introduced predators, diseases, and governmental neglect. Through interviews, archival, vérité, nature footage, and animation created by artist and director, Laurie Sumiye, the film artfully weaves non-human perspectives, science, myth, and indigenous conservation insight collected over the last decade into a spellbinding fable of hope & survival. Directed by Hawaiian nature artist Laurie Sumiye, A PARADISE LOST sweeps audiences to a Pacific island wilderness straight into the struggle of Palila on Hawaii Island, journeying into misty sub-alpine forests.

About the filmmaker - Laurie Sumiye is a Japanese-American artist, animator and filmmaker born and raised in Mililani, Hawaiʻi. She was selected as an inaugural Jackson Wild Multicultural Alliance Fellow in 2021, Firelight Documentary Lab Fellow in 2018-20, Sundance Institute/Women in Film Documentary Fellow in 2020, and UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow in 2010. Her short animated documentaries, STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE, about endangered Hawaiian birds, and OF MEMORY & LOS SURES, an oral history of a Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, have won awards and screened at festivals DOCNYC, BAMcinemaFest, and DOCUTAH. The film was part of an acclaimed transmedia documentary produced by UnionDocs, LIVING LOS SURES, which premiered at NYFF and exhibited at PS1MoMA. She started her career in documentary media creating artwork for PROJECT KASHMIR by Geeta V. Patel & Senain Kheshigi and MY BROOKLYN by Kelly Anderson. A PARADISE LOST is her first feature, which received funding and support from Pacific Islanders in Communications, Firelight Media, Doc Society and Blue Mountain Center, receiving their 2021 Harriet Barlow Commons Award. Laurie has an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from CUNY Hunter College and a BA in Art and BS in Communications from Bradley University, and studied art at Istituto Lorenzo de Medici in Italy. She has exhibited her artwork internationally in galleries, art fairs and museums, and been commissioned for business, nonprofit and private collections. Laurie was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at Digital Artist Studios (N. Ireland), Sacatar Institute (Brazil), Artfunkl (UK), A Studio in the Woods (New Orleans) and Bishop Museum (Hawaii). She taught filmmaking as Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu. Laurie was awarded a Sony Camera Grant and Honorable Mention at IF/Then Shorts x The Redford Center Nature Access Pitch at DOCNYC for animated short doc, MAKANA.