Past Film/Video | Documentaries

małni—towards the ocean, towards the shore

(Sky Hopinka, 2020)

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A person, seen from behind and in silhouette, looks out over the ocean on the balcony of a small room

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May 21, 2021–Jun 17, 2021

Online

STREAM ONLINE
$12 tickets via Grasshopper Films

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Catch Sky Hopinka’s poetic debut feature, “an essential portrait of contemporary Indigenous life” and recent New York Times Critic’s Pick.

Hopinka’s experimental documentary małni—towards the ocean, towards the shore follows two people as they wander through nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside. At the film’s center are expectant mother Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier, two unrelated friends of the director, who take separate paths contemplating their afterlife, rebirth, and death.

Accompanied by stunning cinematography and sound design, their journey circles around the death myth originating from the Chinookan people of the Pacific Northwest, and the film features dialogue in the almost-extinct Chinuk Wawa language. Probing questions about humanity’s place on Earth and other worlds, Hopinka’s film will have audiences thinking (and dreaming) about it long after. In Chinuk Wawa and English with English subtitles. (80 mins., video)

Sky Hopinka’s short films have solidified his reputation as one of the most exciting filmmakers working today; watch his distinctive short that screens as part of the Wexner Center Artist Residency Award project Cinetracts ’20.

"An essential portrait of contemporary Indigenous life….It refreshingly centers the Native perspective, and beckons audiences onto its wavelength by tapping into something more intuitive, the stuff of dreams."

New York Times

Image courtesy of Grasshopper Films

The view of the ocean on a cloudy day; small waves break, traveling from right to left

Image courtesy of Grasshopper Films

A person in a blue jacket, hat, and backpack walks through the woods

Image courtesy of Grasshopper Films

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Film/Video

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