Filmmaker
Lani Cupchoy is an award-winning independent filmmaker. A self-contained creative and passionate storyteller rooted in social justice and K-18 education, Lani’s credits include Director, Writer, Executive Producer, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor, and Choreographer. Film has allowed her to deepen and broaden scholarly activities that disseminate scholarship in more accessible ways while fostering civic engagement and empowering communities.
Documentaries
Oceanbone (2025)
Stolen ancestors lie in museum vaults, waiting to return home. Oceanbone is a poetic reckoning with history, confronting the colonial theft of Indigenous remains and the urgent fight to bring them back.
Islandtrification (2023)
Islandtrification documents the journey of Kānaka Maoli families resisting predatory gentrification on Maui, Hawaii, which has a deep history of displacing locals due to economic development-agribusiness and remains the prime spot for the world elite to build their multimillion-dollar estates.
Winner of:
Best Documentary Short
California Womens Film Festival, 2023
Best Director
Marina Del Rey Film Festival, 2023
Best Original Song
Indie Short Fest, 2023
Best Documentary Short
IndieX Film Festival, 2023
Aloha Soul Food (2022)
Merging personal memoir and photojournalism, Aloha Soul Food nostalgically explores decolonial foodways through the family life stories of six Pacific Island women. Set in Los Angeles, California, the documentary embodies an intergenerational love story to working class women deeply rooted in Hawaii while skillfully examining a century of how they navigated through the Chinese exclusion Acts, the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1960s school cafeterias, the United Public Workers Strike in 1979, and the Women’s Army Core. The film shows how generations can reclaim identity and historical spaces through recipes while reminding us of the deep ties that bind our families and communities together.
Winner of:
Best Women Short
IndieX Film Festival, 2023
Best Documentary Short
Asian Film Festival, 2022
Best Editing Doc Short
Marina Del Rey Film Festival, 2022
Best Women Film
Filmmaker Life Awards, 2022
Food Medicine (2020)
Deep in the suburbs of Los Angeles, CA during the COVID-19 pandemic, mother and daughter use undervalued home garden methods to grow and share fresh healthy abundant produce with family, neighbors, and friends.
Winner of:
Best Human Story
Tulum World Environment Film Festival, 2022
Best by Audience
Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival, 2021
Best Spoken Word Short
Hollywood Women’s Film Festival, 2020
Best Documentary Short
Canada Shorts International Film Festival, 2020
Urban Seeds (2019)
Initiated by Mexican immigrant students, the film highlights the story of a school-based garden movement’s extraordinary passion and fight for food justice in urban Los Angeles and how this grassroots program transformed their neighborhoods and schools into healthier communities becoming the first of its kind in the United States.
Winner of:
Best of Festival
Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival, 2020
Best Documentary Short
Astoria Film Festival, 2020
Best Documentary
California International Shorts Festival, 2019
Best International Film
Huatulco Film Food Festival, 2019
Best International Short
Canada Shorts Film Festival, 2019
Truth Seekers (2016)
Fifth graders and their teacher from Bell Gardens Elementary take on the California State Capitol and successfully champion the passage of AB 146 requiring that the unconstitutional deportations of Mexican-Americans be included in textbooks.
Winner of:
Inspirational Justice Award
Social Justice Film Festival, 2017
Creative Arts Films
CLS Historical Meme Project
California State University, Los Angeles, Fall 2024
CLS Historical Meme Project
California State University, Los Angeles, Spring 2024
Chicanx Latinx Film Festival Recap
California State University, Los Angeles, 2023
Los Angeles Pasifika Film Festival
California State University, Los Angeles, May 6, 2023
Chicanx Latinx Film Festival
California State University, Los Angeles, May 5, 2023
CLS Historical Meme Project
California State University, Los Angeles, Spring 2023
CLS Historical Meme Project
California State University, Los Angeles, Fall 2022
Pitzer Historical Meme Project
CHLT 90 Spring 2022
Pitzer Historical Meme Project
CHLT 157 Spring 2022
Pitzer Historical Meme Project
Fall 2021
Pitzer Historical Meme Project
Fall 2021
CSULA Historical Meme Project
CLS – Spring 2021
CSULA Historical Meme Project
History – Spring 2021
CSULA Historical Meme Project
History – Fall 2020
CSULA Historical Meme Project
CLS – Fall 2020
Pomona Digitizing Testimonios
IDCLS – Spring 2020
Pitzer Historical Meme Project
IDCLS – Spring 2020
CSULA Historical Meme Project
History – Spring 2020
CSULA Historical Meme Project
History & CLS – Fall 2019
Montebello Dual Immersion
2017
Montebello Unified A-Z Dance
2015
Promo Work
Kekoa Strength Training 2024
Alpha Maui
Prestige Dance
Excellence Real Estate (English)
Excellence Real Estate (Spanish)
Kekoa Strength Training
Community Documentaries
Transforming Trauma (2021)
Poet Laureate Luis Rodriguez
Breathe Hawaiian (2014)
Elder Chris Kamana
Voices of Wisdom (2011)
Artist Celso Barcena
Voices of Wisdom (2011)
Healer Jesse Soto
Film Community
Lani Cupchoy is an Advisory Board Member for Creating Creators Foundation 501c3
Creative professionals work in the classroom with the students and the teacher to create a shared experience and develop new ideas. Through extended dialogue and differing perspectives these students develop critical thinking and become innovators.
