As an independent filmmaker and a hula dancer, Lisette Marie Flanary creates films that celebrate a modern renaissance of the hula dance and Hawaiian culture. She is the writer, producer and director of Lehua Films and her award-winning documentaries, AMERICAN ALOHA: Hula Beyond Hawai`i, Nā Kamalei: The Men of Hula, and ONE VOICE have broadcast nationally on public television and shown in film festivals around the world. Lisette is currently directing and producing a documentary entitled Tokyo Hula which explores the explosive popularity of hula in Japan. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in Film and Television Production and received her MFA in Creative Writing at the New School University. Having lived in New York City for over twenty years, Lisette joined the faculty at the University of Hawai`i as the Assistant Professor of Indigenous/Native Creative Media at the Academy for Creative Media in the fall of 2011. She teaches beginning screenwriting, independent producing, and indigenous filmmaking classes.