Kanani Koster is a Kanaka Maoli director and writer based in Portland, OR. She has spoken on numerous panels on race, diversity and representation in film. Kanani is the 2020 Oregon Made Film Grant winner for the docu-short, Any Oregon Sunday, and a 2020 Portland Arts Museum Re:Imagined Artist recipient. She is the Acquisitions & Impact Manager at Collective Eye Films but spends the off season working on set; be it as a director, producer or AD.

Kanani’s visual style and storytelling is focused on juxtaposing our past and present through reflection and echoes. The stories she strives to tell are not bound by genre but challenge nostalgia and tropes through inclusion and normalization of historically under-represented peoples on screen.