Lauren Kawana

Lauren Kawana is a documentary filmmaker from Honolulu, HI and a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism documentary film program. Her directorial debut was Live, Breathe, Hula, a documentary short about Native Hawaiian musician and kumu hula Mark Keali‘i Ho‘omalu. Since then she has worked on feature documentary films such as Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw, Dogtown Redemption, FREE: The Power of Performance, Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066, and No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics. Most recently, Lauren served as field producer for Try Harder! directed by Debbie Lum, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021. As a freelancer, Lauren has worked for KQED, National Geographic, Jigsaw Productions and Imagine Documentaries, among other outlets. Lauren is currently based in Oakland, CA, and a member of the Asian American Doc Network, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and the Asian American Journalists Association.