IMAGE CREDIT: still from – maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore by Sky Hopinka

We are very sorry to announce that due to unexpected circumstances, Sky Hopinka will no longer be joining us tonight for the screening and Q&A at the IFI.  

Tickets are still on sale however and we hope you will join us for this special screening and last aemi event of 2023. 

aemi, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and Stereo Editions are thrilled to partner with IFI to present maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore by renowned artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka whose video, photo and text work considers personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape. A Ho-Chunk Nation national and descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, Hopinka is a teacher of chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin in which much of maɬni is spoken. Hopinka’s interest in language as a container of culture is much in evidence in this ethereal feature debut, a film which follows two young parents – Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier – as they hike across the mountains of the Pacific Northwest and reflect upon the environment around them, the spirit world and the Chinookan origin-of-death myth. Described by the New York Times as ‘an essential portrait of contemporary Indigenous life’, maɬni lends poetic expression to the urgent need to preserve as well as lament what has already been lost of Indigenous culture.