Cris Romento

Cris Romento is a Native Hawaiian filmmaker and impact producer whose work centers on telling healing, joyful stories about contemporary Hawaiʻi. Thirty years after her family was “priced out of paradise,” Cris returned to her hometown on Oʻahu to reconnect with her roots and create her short documentary about the Hawaiian diaspora, Dear Aloha, which won Best Short Documentary at FIFO (International Oceanic Documentary Film Festival) in Tahiti.

Before returning to Hawai’i, Cris worked overseas in Saudi Arabia, leading creative teams to develop brand storytelling for sustainable science initiatives and startups. She also created content for TEDx and organizations partnered with the United Nations. After relocating to Brooklyn, Cris worked as a freelance editor and director, focusing on sustainability with nonprofits in responsible tourism and ocean conservation.

Now based between Hawaiʻi and NYC, Cris is dedicated to projects that amplify Indigenous stewardship and environmental justice. Her work has been supported by PBS, Firelight Media, and Pacific Islanders in Communications. Her films have screened at Oscar-qualifying festivals across North America, from Hawaiʻi to New York City, and throughout Oceania. Cris is a recipient of the Firelight Media Impact Campaign fund and the Courageous Documentary Filmmaking Grant from the Seattle International Film Festival.

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ABOUT DEAR ALOHA

Dear Aloha is a heartfelt story of the meaning of aloha through the lives of Diasporic Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, and how it sustains them across distance, loss, and longing. Meanwhile, in Hawai‘i, locals confront the lasting impact of colonization that has Hawaiians disappearing from their homeland.

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