Voices Rising
Springdale, Arkansas | Film Feature
Documentary, Music
Most Americans can’t find the Marshall Islands on a map yet the island atoll country is ground zero for climate change and US nuclear testing. This film humanizes these entrenched issues through the perspective of young, diasporic Marshallese musicians from Arkansas coming home for the first time.
Voices Rising
Springdale, Arkansas | Film Feature
Documentary, Music
1 Campaigns | Oregon, United States
75 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$7,276
Goal: $10,000 for post-production
Most Americans can’t find the Marshall Islands on a map yet the island atoll country is ground zero for climate change and US nuclear testing. This film humanizes these entrenched issues through the perspective of young, diasporic Marshallese musicians from Arkansas coming home for the first time.
Participating In
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
VOICES RISING is a story of discovery and confrontation through the eyes of diasporic Marshallese musicians as they reckon with the scars of nuclear testing and the threat of rising sea levels. The film follows MARK Harmony—a young boy band from Springdale, Arkansas, composed of Marshallese-Americans. Raised far from their homeland, they embark on a journey to the Marshall Islands for the first time, driven by a desire to connect with their ancestral roots before it’s too late. Their situation reflects a growing reality for the Marshallese people; a disconnect from the land that anchors them to culture and language.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a small island-nation located in the central Pacific Ocean, about midway between Hawaii and Australia. Formed entirely of low-lying coral atolls and islands, they rise just a few feet above sea level, creating a delicate balance between land and sea that defines both daily life and vulnerability. Their isolation, thousands of miles from any major continent, has preserved some of the most pristine coral reefs in the Pacific, and a deep cultural bond between the Marshallese people and the ocean that sustains them.
Yet this same remoteness also placed the islands at the center of the United States’ nuclear testing program during the Cold War, leaving a lasting legacy of displacement and radioactive contamination that persists until today. Partially declassified documents now confirm that from 1946 to 1958, the US tested over 60 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands including Castle Bravo, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States. Over 60 years later, the United States still has not formally apologized to the Marshallese people.
This documentary is not just a reminder of loss. It is a story of creation, where MARK Harmony transforms their experience of discovery and confrontation into music that honors their heritage and celebrates their people’s resilience.
Through intimate interviews, immersive vérité, archival footage, and lyrical dream sequences, VOICES RISING centers on the diasporic Marshallese experience, braiding together themes of identity, music, environment, nuclear justice. Narrated by Matthew, MARK Harmony’s leader and baritone, we witness their discovery and confrontation unfold through:
- Their initial immersion into island life
- First concert performance on Marshallese soil.
- Meeting displaced communities uprooted by nuclear testing.
- Touring Majuro Atoll with Jo-Jikum, discovering the remnants of lost lands with fellow Marshallese youth working in the local climate movement.
- Arsi’s sudden sickness that sends him to hospital
- Matt’s struggle with songwriting that pushes him to the creative brink
- Setting on a mission to receive the blessing of Irooj Laplap (Marshallese High Chief)
- Their confrontation of nuclear legacy at Runit Dome; a thick concrete cover in Enewetak atoll that covers tons of nuclear waste
- Emergence on the national stage of their home country, as they headline the Marshall Island's independence day concert
Through VOICES RISING, MARK Harmony’s music becomes more than melody—it becomes testimony: a living expression of identity and hope for the islands that shaped them.
Help Us Reach Picture Lock!
This film is independently produced and over 6 years in the making. Beginning as a music-making experience with Marshallese artists and developing into a short poetic documentary, titled “Aelon Ko Ad Ion Lometo” (Our Islands On The Sea), the project has grown alongside the community it’s serving.
Now, we are in early post-production with our feature-length documentary and we need your support to finish editing.
The VOICES RISING community banded together in 2023 for our first crowdfunding campaign which allowed the filmmaking team to finish production in the Marshall Islands. Now, with picture-lock in sight, we are humbly requesting the support of the VOICES RISING community a final time to bring the film through post-production.
We are also participating in the Seed&Spark AAPI Rally Competition for an opportunity to pitch to Gold House's Creative Equity Fund, a chance to pitch at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and an opportunity to raise an additional $12,500 for VOICES RISING.
Right now the best way to support VOICES RISING is through a financial contribution. If you'd like to support VOICES RISING but it’s not the right time to support financially that's okay! (Really!) Here's what you can do instead:
- Follow the campaign on Seed&Spark! The project needs 350 followers to move on to the next round of competition.
- Share the following on your social media: Help @voices.rising by supporting their documentary project on @seedandspark! Join them here: https://seedandspark.com/fund/voices-rising?token=bc3826b89bb8ee18bad5a853f468e504ec090f0e3ddb24bb1e644ad80bbd05b6#story
- Forward this campaign to anyone you know that might be interested VOICES RISING’s mission
Mission Statement
Through this film and beyond, we envision: a thriving art landscape where Pacific Islander youth are empowered to change their world, empathy for communities affected by rising sea levels, and a future where the damage of the US’s nuclear testing is formally acknowledged and memorialized.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Fine Edit
Costs $7,000
Pay our superstar post-team to bring our rough cut to picture lock.
Archival Licensing
Costs $1,000
The Marshall Islands rests at the crossroads of history. We need notes of archival footage for our story context.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Kathy Kijiner - Project Advisor / Founder of Jo-Jikum / National Climate Envoy for the RMI
Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a poet of Marshallese ancestry, born in the Marshall Islands and raised in Hawai’i. She currently serves as Climate Envoy for the Marshall Islands Ministry of Environment. Her work focuses on supporting her government in engaging in the multilateral climate space, as well as in developing national policies on climate adaptation. She has a background of creative practice as a poet and artist exploring her culture’s rich storytelling and how these stories converse with climate change impacts and its intersections with the legacy of the US nuclear weapons testing program on the Marshall Islands. She has shared these explorations through written poetry, the curation of poem videos, performances, and art installations. In 2012, she co-founded the Marshallese climate youth nonprofit, Jo-Jikum, and has led the organization of programming and actions on climate change, nuclear advocacy, and arts for Marshallese youth for over 13 years. She currently lives between Majuro, Marshall Islands, and Portland, Oregon in the United States, and is completing a PhD from Australia National University in Pacific Studies focusing on poetry and the RMI’s national adaptation policies.
Kianna Angelo - Project Advisor / Director and Founder of Living Islands
Mrs. Angelo is the current Special Envoy to the Kwajalein Atoll Local Government In matters of Renewable Energy, Green Technology, and Sustainable Infrastructure, as well as the Founder and the current Executive Director of Living Islands Non-Profit. She co-founded COFA Alliance National Network (CANN) and served as President while the organization passed the Premium Assistance Program for the Micronesian Communities; She’s a co-founder, board member, and member of the executive committee at Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition (OPIC), a Member on the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Community and Research Advisory Council, served as Consulting Member for the Pacific Resilience Fund, Pacific Peoples’ Partnership in Canada, a representative in the Multnomah County Pacific Islander Community, a coalition member of the Oregon State Disaster Resilience Learning Network, and member of the advisory team for data stewardship in the Oregon Department of Education.
Marcina Langrine - Project Advisor / Operations Coordinator at Marshallese Educational Initiative
Marcina was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and is now based in Springdale, Arkansas. Marcina is an Operations Coordinator at the Marshallese Educational Initiative (MEI), where she has served since 2019. She oversees the Women’s Advocacy Program, developing training and workshops to raise awareness of domestic violence, sexual assault, and gender-based violence. Marcina also supports cultural programming and helps promote higher education enrollment while educating communities about the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ nuclear legacy and climate change. Marcina is a climate and nuclear justice advocate who has contributed to research on cancer rates and barriers to healthcare. In 2023, she was recognized among the 100 Top Women of Impact in Arkansas.
Clay Kruse - Director
Clay Kruse is a director and cinematographer currently based in Vancouver, Washington. Traveling throughout the world on documentary projects, Kruse aims to foster meaningful connections between people and nature. Clay has also spent the last decade working with Marshallese youth, in both the Marshall Islands and the United States, pertaining to academia, activism and artistic development. Since his professional filmmaking journey began in 2019, he has directed award winning short films, co-founded a production company (AFTER95 Creative), and spearheaded his first feature length film and music project - Voices Rising. On a sunny day you can find him at the beach or atop a mountain peak with his Aussie pup Lumi.
Andrew Yamada - Producer
Andrew Yamada is an award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer, and producer originally from Oahu, Hawaii. Currently based in Portland, Oregon, Yamada’s films seek to amplify the ideas of stewardship, community, exploration, and the fabric in-between while pushing the limits of the nonfiction’s aesthetic form. His work has taken him around the world, documenting the earnest relationship between humans and their environments. He is a proud member of the Asian American Doc Network and the Jacksonwild Collective. Away from the camera, you can find Andrew in the ocean or at his local bookstore.
Inaya Yusuf - Consulting Story Producer
Inaya Graciana Yusuf is an Indonesian-American documentary filmmaker. Her most recent work as a picture editor includes Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, Lucy and Desi, The Space Race, Rather, and Join or Die. Her editorial craft, championing storytelling on social justice, race issues, gender equality, as well as cultural icons and legends, has gained Television Academy, DuPont and Peabody recognition, nomination and awards.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
VOICES RISING is a story of discovery and confrontation through the eyes of diasporic Marshallese musicians as they reckon with the scars of nuclear testing and the threat of rising sea levels. The film follows MARK Harmony—a young boy band from Springdale, Arkansas, composed of Marshallese-Americans. Raised far from their homeland, they embark on a journey to the Marshall Islands for the first time, driven by a desire to connect with their ancestral roots before it’s too late. Their situation reflects a growing reality for the Marshallese people; a disconnect from the land that anchors them to culture and language.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a small island-nation located in the central Pacific Ocean, about midway between Hawaii and Australia. Formed entirely of low-lying coral atolls and islands, they rise just a few feet above sea level, creating a delicate balance between land and sea that defines both daily life and vulnerability. Their isolation, thousands of miles from any major continent, has preserved some of the most pristine coral reefs in the Pacific, and a deep cultural bond between the Marshallese people and the ocean that sustains them.
Yet this same remoteness also placed the islands at the center of the United States’ nuclear testing program during the Cold War, leaving a lasting legacy of displacement and radioactive contamination that persists until today. Partially declassified documents now confirm that from 1946 to 1958, the US tested over 60 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands including Castle Bravo, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States. Over 60 years later, the United States still has not formally apologized to the Marshallese people.
This documentary is not just a reminder of loss. It is a story of creation, where MARK Harmony transforms their experience of discovery and confrontation into music that honors their heritage and celebrates their people’s resilience.
Through intimate interviews, immersive vérité, archival footage, and lyrical dream sequences, VOICES RISING centers on the diasporic Marshallese experience, braiding together themes of identity, music, environment, nuclear justice. Narrated by Matthew, MARK Harmony’s leader and baritone, we witness their discovery and confrontation unfold through:
- Their initial immersion into island life
- First concert performance on Marshallese soil.
- Meeting displaced communities uprooted by nuclear testing.
- Touring Majuro Atoll with Jo-Jikum, discovering the remnants of lost lands with fellow Marshallese youth working in the local climate movement.
- Arsi’s sudden sickness that sends him to hospital
- Matt’s struggle with songwriting that pushes him to the creative brink
- Setting on a mission to receive the blessing of Irooj Laplap (Marshallese High Chief)
- Their confrontation of nuclear legacy at Runit Dome; a thick concrete cover in Enewetak atoll that covers tons of nuclear waste
- Emergence on the national stage of their home country, as they headline the Marshall Island's independence day concert
Through VOICES RISING, MARK Harmony’s music becomes more than melody—it becomes testimony: a living expression of identity and hope for the islands that shaped them.
Help Us Reach Picture Lock!
This film is independently produced and over 6 years in the making. Beginning as a music-making experience with Marshallese artists and developing into a short poetic documentary, titled “Aelon Ko Ad Ion Lometo” (Our Islands On The Sea), the project has grown alongside the community it’s serving.
Now, we are in early post-production with our feature-length documentary and we need your support to finish editing.
The VOICES RISING community banded together in 2023 for our first crowdfunding campaign which allowed the filmmaking team to finish production in the Marshall Islands. Now, with picture-lock in sight, we are humbly requesting the support of the VOICES RISING community a final time to bring the film through post-production.
We are also participating in the Seed&Spark AAPI Rally Competition for an opportunity to pitch to Gold House's Creative Equity Fund, a chance to pitch at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and an opportunity to raise an additional $12,500 for VOICES RISING.
Right now the best way to support VOICES RISING is through a financial contribution. If you'd like to support VOICES RISING but it’s not the right time to support financially that's okay! (Really!) Here's what you can do instead:
- Follow the campaign on Seed&Spark! The project needs 350 followers to move on to the next round of competition.
- Share the following on your social media: Help @voices.rising by supporting their documentary project on @seedandspark! Join them here: https://seedandspark.com/fund/voices-rising?token=bc3826b89bb8ee18bad5a853f468e504ec090f0e3ddb24bb1e644ad80bbd05b6#story
- Forward this campaign to anyone you know that might be interested VOICES RISING’s mission
Mission Statement
Through this film and beyond, we envision: a thriving art landscape where Pacific Islander youth are empowered to change their world, empathy for communities affected by rising sea levels, and a future where the damage of the US’s nuclear testing is formally acknowledged and memorialized.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Fine Edit
Costs $7,000
Pay our superstar post-team to bring our rough cut to picture lock.
Archival Licensing
Costs $1,000
The Marshall Islands rests at the crossroads of history. We need notes of archival footage for our story context.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Kathy Kijiner - Project Advisor / Founder of Jo-Jikum / National Climate Envoy for the RMI
Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a poet of Marshallese ancestry, born in the Marshall Islands and raised in Hawai’i. She currently serves as Climate Envoy for the Marshall Islands Ministry of Environment. Her work focuses on supporting her government in engaging in the multilateral climate space, as well as in developing national policies on climate adaptation. She has a background of creative practice as a poet and artist exploring her culture’s rich storytelling and how these stories converse with climate change impacts and its intersections with the legacy of the US nuclear weapons testing program on the Marshall Islands. She has shared these explorations through written poetry, the curation of poem videos, performances, and art installations. In 2012, she co-founded the Marshallese climate youth nonprofit, Jo-Jikum, and has led the organization of programming and actions on climate change, nuclear advocacy, and arts for Marshallese youth for over 13 years. She currently lives between Majuro, Marshall Islands, and Portland, Oregon in the United States, and is completing a PhD from Australia National University in Pacific Studies focusing on poetry and the RMI’s national adaptation policies.
Kianna Angelo - Project Advisor / Director and Founder of Living Islands
Mrs. Angelo is the current Special Envoy to the Kwajalein Atoll Local Government In matters of Renewable Energy, Green Technology, and Sustainable Infrastructure, as well as the Founder and the current Executive Director of Living Islands Non-Profit. She co-founded COFA Alliance National Network (CANN) and served as President while the organization passed the Premium Assistance Program for the Micronesian Communities; She’s a co-founder, board member, and member of the executive committee at Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition (OPIC), a Member on the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Community and Research Advisory Council, served as Consulting Member for the Pacific Resilience Fund, Pacific Peoples’ Partnership in Canada, a representative in the Multnomah County Pacific Islander Community, a coalition member of the Oregon State Disaster Resilience Learning Network, and member of the advisory team for data stewardship in the Oregon Department of Education.
Marcina Langrine - Project Advisor / Operations Coordinator at Marshallese Educational Initiative
Marcina was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and is now based in Springdale, Arkansas. Marcina is an Operations Coordinator at the Marshallese Educational Initiative (MEI), where she has served since 2019. She oversees the Women’s Advocacy Program, developing training and workshops to raise awareness of domestic violence, sexual assault, and gender-based violence. Marcina also supports cultural programming and helps promote higher education enrollment while educating communities about the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ nuclear legacy and climate change. Marcina is a climate and nuclear justice advocate who has contributed to research on cancer rates and barriers to healthcare. In 2023, she was recognized among the 100 Top Women of Impact in Arkansas.
Clay Kruse - Director
Clay Kruse is a director and cinematographer currently based in Vancouver, Washington. Traveling throughout the world on documentary projects, Kruse aims to foster meaningful connections between people and nature. Clay has also spent the last decade working with Marshallese youth, in both the Marshall Islands and the United States, pertaining to academia, activism and artistic development. Since his professional filmmaking journey began in 2019, he has directed award winning short films, co-founded a production company (AFTER95 Creative), and spearheaded his first feature length film and music project - Voices Rising. On a sunny day you can find him at the beach or atop a mountain peak with his Aussie pup Lumi.
Andrew Yamada - Producer
Andrew Yamada is an award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer, and producer originally from Oahu, Hawaii. Currently based in Portland, Oregon, Yamada’s films seek to amplify the ideas of stewardship, community, exploration, and the fabric in-between while pushing the limits of the nonfiction’s aesthetic form. His work has taken him around the world, documenting the earnest relationship between humans and their environments. He is a proud member of the Asian American Doc Network and the Jacksonwild Collective. Away from the camera, you can find Andrew in the ocean or at his local bookstore.
Inaya Yusuf - Consulting Story Producer
Inaya Graciana Yusuf is an Indonesian-American documentary filmmaker. Her most recent work as a picture editor includes Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, Lucy and Desi, The Space Race, Rather, and Join or Die. Her editorial craft, championing storytelling on social justice, race issues, gender equality, as well as cultural icons and legends, has gained Television Academy, DuPont and Peabody recognition, nomination and awards.