ma?ni – towards the ocean, towards the shore
Description
Bodies of water ebb and flow throughout this poetic experimental documentary by filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Honoring connections to nature and the cycles of life, maɬni separately follows two Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest as they share their own personal rituals and relationships to life, identity, language, and their homeland while sonically weaving in the origin-of-death myth from the Chinookan people. Meditative and beautifully photographed, Hopinka’s film is a lush exploration of afterlife, rebirth, and the place in-between.
Biographies
Ferndale, WA, native Sky Hopinka is a Ho-Chunk Nation national and descendant of the Pechanga band of Luiseño Native Americans. He currently teaches film, video, and animation at Simon Fraser University, and he has also taught Chinuk Wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His films include Trade (2013), Jáaji Approx. (Festival 2016), Visions of an Island (2016), and Dislocation Blues (2017). maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore is his first feature.