Haagua

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
Runtime:  15:22
Country of Origin: Mexico
Country of Filming: Mexico

An Indigenous surf film that celebrates the timeless bond between humanity and the ocean, Haagua follows a group of Native American surfers as they revive ancestral traditions, blending cultural resilience with the cultural art of surfing to honor the past and inspire the future.Haagua explores the profound bond personified by Great Great Grandmother Ocean (played by Jacinda Townsend, Vartan Gregorian Assistant Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University and the 2023 winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction, and Honor Book of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association). Through voices from the past and prayers for the future, the film traces the enduring memory of survival that connects generations. Surfing emerges not merely as a sport but as a rediscovery of cultural practices and a revival of an original way of life.This cultural regeneration comes to life through the journeys of featured Indigenous surfers, including Andy Nieblas (Acjachemen), David Flores Ramos (Nahua), Kaliko Kahoonei (Hawaiian), Shuuluk Leo-Retz (Kumeyaay), Amon B. Chavez (Nahua-Carib), Reg Macarro (Payomkawichum-Ojibwe), and Marc Chavez (Nahua-Xicano). Together, they embody a modern resurgence of ancestral wisdom, blending tradition with the rhythm of the waves in a story of resilience, identity, and connection