04/26/2025
My First Short Film is out now… The Price of Paradise 1988
Special thanks to 🤝
The Price of Paradise | Short Film (2025)
This movie was inspired by two true stories woven together: the unsolved disappearance of John Henry Geppert III in 1988, and a real-life robbery that happened to me at the Diamond Head Lookout.
John’s last known moment was a call from a payphone... and then, he vanished without a trace. In imagining what could have happened, I set this story in 1988, the same year he disappeared. In a world without the safety nets we take for granted today, one wrong turn could mean losing everything.
This short film raises awareness for missing people who are still out there and shines a light on the homeless population in Hawaii and beyond. Every homeless person has a story. In The Price of Paradise, Sonny Canoe Kumkea, homeless man, was a war veteran ... a man who served in the Kuwait War, only to return home to a life that had moved on without him.
This is a story about survival, loss, and the thin line between paradise and despair.
Homeless people are people too.
And every missing person deserves to be remembered.
