Director's statement:
This will be a film about home, dreams, memory, and connection.
This is a very special film. As someone who grew up in several small, predominately white, rural towns, I’ve continuously asked myself: how do I retain my own sense of belonging as an Indigenous man? This film is first and foremost for folks who’ve left their home–and how they reconcile that.
I believe we reclaim agency through images. My childhood reservation home, painted in bright blue government paint, plays a pivotal scene in Hoops with its shoddy outdoor basketball court. Authentic storytelling enhances this coming-of-age drama to something relatable.
To illustrate Nate's perspective, we’ll shoot on 16mm. Test rolls of 250D reveal our living, breathing Nevada. The one Nate leaves. Revealing his emotional state through fragmented, adolescent memories. From a production standpoint, we are taking film cameras with bare-bones crew and non-actors to the middle of a Nevada desert. I know we’ll capture some magic naturally.
Shooting this way allows me to be more intentional with framing and the space I create on set. It also inspired me to learn Shoshone through weekly classes I found while casting. Better understand my own source material. Adding sound design details I wouldn’t have considered. This journey of self-discovery continues to guide the development process.
Ultimately, Nate’s journey confronts his past to see towards the future. Will this trauma affect him like it did his father, or not? How can he do the right thing? Hoops embraces a child’s perspective of the world. One we all have access to within ourselves.
Hoops centers a Native child’s joy and dreaming in the most unlikely places, I grew up in a tough environments, but oddly, I found my humor, creativity and artistic sensibility there. Involving that same community has been a wonderful experience from our fundraiser, to casting, to folks suggesting lines in Shoshone...”no nagies!” I want to make this for them. We have a special project here that centers pickup basketball. It's the most accessible way to play the game, from cities to small rural towns can play it. You don’t need to be on a team or league, it’s for everyone.
To me, this story is about self-preserving. To Nate, his family, and people, relocation is too common. This story demands to be told. We all need to find what grounds ourselves. I see Hoops having a long festival run alongside community screenings. We've already gotten a few community centers interested! So how can we bring this film to the people it's about? We are already dreaming up what Hoops could be in the next few years.
