ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby
2023 HEAR US Awardee
Graduate Film Class of 2023
ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby is a writer/director from Grand Rapids, MI, and a citizen of the Kchi Wiikwedong Anishinaabek. He is a former Sundance fellow whose films have screened in several tribal communities, museums and film festivals around the world.
ishkwaazhe has been selected as one of two 2023 recipients of the Kyoko Arai Fund, a gift made possible by Kyoko and Yuki Arai (NYU Stern '10, MBA), who hope to encourage diverse voices and stories in the film industry.
Project
"Nimkii"
Nimkii is ishkwaazhe's first feature film script. It is being adapted from his first semester MOS project at NYU’s Grad Film program.
Nimkii is the story of Evelyn, a 13 year old Anishinaabe girl who receives more and more visions that grownups seem to downplay as just her imagination. After failing grades and physical fights at school, Evelyn is suspended and her father’s parenting skills are questioned. Out of paranoid desperation, he brings her out to the bush to hide with her estranged grandmother. While she’s here, she learns that the visions are her ancestors trying to communicate with her, but in order to connect with them, she must first connect with the land. Unfortunately, that land is being devastated by a pipeline project. As she reconnects with the remaining land, she is gifted special powers through the Nimkiig, or thunderbirds. She must now learn to combine her individual powers with the power of community in order to stop the destruction of the pipeline and save the land.
