Tucson tiki film heading to Hollywood — sort of

The film, directed by Josh Dragotta, was selected for the 29th annual Dances With Films indie film festival running June 18-28 at Hollywood's famous TCL Chinese Theatres, aka Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

"We are fulfilling our Hollywood fantasies," joked "Cabali" producer Doug "Fini" Finical, whose years-long obsession with tiki mugs and tiki culture led him to create the Oro Valley speakeasy Cabali.

Walk outside the theater, and you're standing among the nearly 3,000 Hollywood stars immortalized in terrazzo along the 1.3-mile stretch famously known as the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

But that's as close to Hollywood as Dances With Films gets. The festival, launched in 1998, is vehemently anti-Hollywood establishment, including rejecting films that feature "known name" actors, directors and writers.

"It sort of likes to frame itself as the indie festival," said Finical. 

"Cabali" retraces Finical's three-plus-year journey turning a vacant space next to his and longtime business partner Scott Mencke's Oro Valley restaurant The Landing into a world-class tiki bar.

Initially, Finical wanted Dragotta to make a promotional reel for social media, but after diving deeper into Finical's 30-year obsession with collecting tiki mugs — his collection numbers at least 1,250 — Dragotta proposed making a documentary. 

Last October, the film landed in its first film festival, the prestigious Newport Beach Film Festival. Since then, it has been featured in four others; Dances With Films is the sixth. 

"We've had some great success," Dragotta said last week. "We sold out at the Napa Valley Film Festival, Vero Beach in Florida."

It also sold out at April's Julien Dubuque International Film Festival in Dubuque, Iowa.

"In Iowa, the response was just so warm. It was great," said Dragotta, who said the film has resonated with audiences wherever it has screened, including at Film Fest Tucson in March. "Documentaries are stereotypically heavy subject matters like racism, and we don't have that. Every time we go to a festival, people are just so happy after they leave the theater."

"Cabali and the Tiki Mug Obsession" is among 17 documentaries featured in the 2026 Dances With Films festival, which also includes 45 feature films, dozens of shorts and more than 30 pilots for proposed television shows or streaming series.

"Cabali" is set to screen at 8 p.m. June 20. 

Dragotta said he and Finical have received a number of film festival invitations, but the pair is only considering places where audiences would appreciate tiki culture.

In the fall, they plan to take the film on tour to independent movie houses throughout the U.S. in collaboration with tiki communities in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas-Fort Worth, Sacramento and Orlando. Dragotta said they also are looking at Phoenix and a possible encore in Tucson.

"Tiki is everywhere. We just want to bring it to folks," he said, explaining that the plan is to collaborate with tiki bars. "We have a unique thing and show business right now is in a really unique spot. The cost of making movies is expensive and streaming services are skeptical of taking on niche films. But we know there is a large tiki community out there. Our philosophy is to take it to the tiki communities that want to see it."