POV Award: Sky Hopinka + “maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore”
Persistence of Vision Award
Established in 1997, the Persistence of Vision Award honors the achievement of a filmmaker whose main body of work falls outside the realm of narrative feature filmmaking each year. This year, the award goes to filmmaker and multi-hyphenate artist Sky Hopinka.
maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore
Bodies of water ebb and flow throughout Sky Hopinka’s poetic experimental documentary that follows the wanderings of two Native Americans as they share their rituals and relationships to life, identity, language, and their homeland.
Guests Expected
Director Sky Hopinka is expected to attend.
Description
maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore
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 (pronounced moth-nee) separately follows the wanderings of Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercieras as they share their personal rituals and relationships to life, identity, language, and their homeland. Meditative and beautifully photographed, the film sonically weaves in the origin-of-death myth from the Chinookan people. Hopinka has crafted a lush exploration of afterlife, rebirth, and the place in-between.—Festival 2020
Persistence of Vision Award
Memory is a slippery thing, frequently altered by experiences, exposure, and time. How can memories, so susceptible to alteration, preserve culture, combat erasure, and carry forward heritage? And if memories can be collected, how can a recollection be conveyed in a film or a photograph? Critically acclaimed, multi-hyphenate artist Sky Hopinka’s work is an ever-evolving, multifaceted exploration of the process of remembrance as one moves through time and landscape. His propulsive, non-traditional films burst with kinetic visuals, each a layered art piece that challenges the positioning of Indigenous culture in American society. A bold visionary who defies categorization, Sky Hopinka is the 2025 Festival Persistence of Vision Awardee. In celebration of his artistry SFFILM will screen his debut feature maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (originally slated for the cancelled Festival 2020) as well as a special presentation of select shorts films in conjunction with BAMPFA’s installation of Hopinka’s Sunflower Siege Engine.
Film Details
Languagechinuk wawa, English
Year2020
Runtime81
CountryUSA
DirectorSky Hopinka
ProducerSky Hopinka, Crystal Erlendson, Steve Holmgren
EditorSky Hopinka
CinematographerSky Hopinka
MusicThad Kellstadt
CastSweetwater Sahme, Jordan Mercier, Sky Hopinka
Print SourceGrasshopper Film
Closed CaptionsClosed Captions are not currently confirmed for this film
Audio DescriptionAudio Descriptions are not currently confirmed for this film
American Sign Language (ASL) InterpretationAmerican Sign Language Interpretation is not currently scheduled for this film
