Film Screening—maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore, and a post-screening conversation with Sky Hopinka

FILM at LACMA presents classic and contemporary narrative and documentary films, artists and their influences, emerging auteurs, international showcases, special guest-curated programs, and conversations with artists and special guests.

Join FILM at LACMA, The Autry Museum of the American West and Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) for a co-presented screening of maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore. The film will be followed by a post-screening conversation with director Sky Hopinka.

The first full-length feature film by director Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk / Pechanga) is a poetic exploration in his signature style, seen here in the first L.A. screening following the world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. A narrator follows Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier’s perambulations through their worlds—sometimes overlapping, sometimes not—as they wonder and wander through the afterlife, rebirth, and the place in-between. Spoken mostly in chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Columbia River Basin, their stories are departures from the Chinookan origin of death myth, with its distant beginning and circular shape.

2020, 82 minutes | Directed by Sky Hopinka; with Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier