Poet and independent filmmaker & producer Richard Hamasaki has been active in Hawai‘i’s literary and arts community for 50 years, collaborating with creatives locally, regionally, and internationally. In 2019, he executive produced a 20-minute award-winning narrative film Down on the Sidewalk in Waikīkī directed by filmmaker Justyn Ah Chong. Richard’s poetry-based films I AM A PLASTIC and For He Who Wears the Sea Like a Malo were screened during the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival in 2021 and 2022, respectively. In 2024, he co-produced a short narrative HULI directed by Daniel Croix. In this same year, Richard co-directed and produced — with two Bay Area filmmakers, Jody Stillwater and Sebastian Galasso — an experimental film MANIFESTO [for Concrete Poetry] that features as well as honors the late Wayne Kaumualii Westlake’s 3-page poem first published in 1979 in Seaweeds and Constructions issue No. 6 (Honolulu: ʻElepaio Press). In October 2024, both shorts will be screened at the 44th Hawaiʻi International Film Festival. He continues to write and publish poetry, direct and produce independent films, and mentor as well as work collaboratively with others. Richard Hamasaki identifies as a Sansei, grandchild of Japanese immigrants to the U.S. continent and to the illegally occupied Hawaiian Islands.