Film screening: maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore

Sky Hopinka
maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (2020)

Date: March 17, 2022
Time: 7 pm CST
Location: Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts 241)
Cost: Free and open to the public

As part of the exhibition material + time, currently on view at the University of Saskatchewan Kenderdine Art Gallery, three films that expand on themes of temporality, materiality and built form will be presented. Each work investigates complex and layered accounts of historical moments and worldviews, often bringing societal ambitions for progress into question, as suggested in a narrative sequence from Daniel Eisenberg’s Persistence: “things have become better than they were a year ago, though not much. Or, has one simply grown used to the rubble?”

All screenings are free of charge to the public. Guests must comply with University of Saskatchewan COVID-19 protocols.

Directions to the University of Saskatchewan Neatby-Timlin Theatre can be found here.

maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore 
RUNTIME: 80 MINUTES

A poetic, experimental debut feature circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, małni – towards the ocean, towards the shore follows two people as they wander through their surrounding nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside. At its centre are Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier, who take separate paths contemplating their afterlife, rebirth, and death. Probing questions about humanity’s place on Earth and other worlds, Sky Hopinka’s film will have audiences thinking (and dreaming) about it long after.

Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, California, Portland, Oregon, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo, and text work centres around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary, and non-fiction forms of media. He received his BA from Portland State University in Liberal Arts and his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He currently teaches at Bard College in Film and Electronic Arts.

(Description courtesy of Grasshopper Film; biography courtesy of Sky Hopinka)

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