Māhū were once valued and respected as caretakers, healers, and teachers of ancient traditions who passed on sacred knowledge, but missionaries who arrived imposed their language and religious strictures across the Hawaiian islands, and pushed against this concept.
During the year covered by the film, Kumu Hina mentors one of the students, Hoʻonani, who also finds herself "in the middle" when she wants to join the all-male hula group in her school.
The film also follows Kumu Hina's personal life as she seeks a committed romantic relationship with a man from Tonga, and travels into the hills to meet her elders, the traditional third gender māhū who live together on the land and provide her with spiritual guidance.
magazine commended the film for "lifting the veil on the misunderstood and marginalized experience of 'other' gendered individuals whose identity cannot be defined by the broad strokes of contemporary Western categorization".
The campaign, launched at an event at the Ford Foundation, includes a short children's version of the film, A Place in the Middle, and teaching and classroom discussion guides.