Kailua Filmmaker Seeks Funding For Hawaii Summer Premiere
Kailua's Brayden Yoder (right) relaxes with lead actor Rob Tepper on the set of his independent film, 'Breakdown.' Photo from Teresa Dawson.
A Kailua native now based in India is seeking to complete his second independent film with the help of Hawaii residents.
Brayden Yoder, who also is an Iraq war veteran, hopes to debut Breakdown in the Islands this summer, sharing with a Western audience his “classic film noir” set in India, where he has lived for several years. The plot centers around a desperate American who, after fleeing the scene of a fatal accident, falls into a fateful night amid the darkest shadows of urban India. He meets up with “a small-time hustler and mysterious tamasha dancer who force him to confront the karmic currents of his own conscience.”
The raw filming was completed last year in Pune, a large city in the Indian state of Maharashtra, where Yoder lives and studies at the Film & Television Institute of India. He returns to Hawaii each summer to teach English and social studies at Punahou, his alma mater. Once the film’s finished touches are done, Yoder will receive his graduate degree in film direction and return to America.
“As a filmmaker living in Pune,” he said in an online profile, “I’ve written and directed two short films set in India, which explore the traditions of the sub-continent and the cultural clashes between west and east. As a teacher in Honolulu, I try to challenge my students to accept nothing less than their best, and to trust their own voices.
“As a veteran of the U.S. Army, I am grateful for having had the chance to serve the country by serving the men and women to my right and left. And I’m ever mindful of those who did not make it back.”
Yoder was able to cast actor Rob Tepper (featured in Ben Affleck’s Argo) in the principal role, and two veteran Indian stage and screen actors as well.
To learn more about the film project, or to offer help, visit indiegogo.com/breakdownfilm or go to its Facebook site.
