HOOPS, HOPES & DREAMS – documentary film

Tomato Beach created three animated sequences featuring dynamic basketball action for the documentary Hoops, Hopes & Dreams, premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and won the Best Documentary Short at the 2025 Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF)

At the heart of the film is a little-known story about how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Andrew Young used basketball as a powerful tool to build trust and connect with communities during the Civil Rights Movement. The quiet ingenuity behind their strategy, along with its timely relevance, made it a meaningful story to explore.

As soon as director Glenn Kaino shared the concept with me, I couldn’t wait to get involved. Glenn is a visionary conceptual artist and filmmaker whose work often explores social and environmental themes in thoughtful and innovative ways. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with him on several rewarding projects that aim to spark dialogue and raise awareness, including an immersive art show about ecological stewardship and two other feature documentary films With Drawn Arms and Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself.

Coincidentally, directing an animated basketball project was high on my creative bucket list. I’ve been playing and watching the game since I moved from Ukraine to New York in the 90s, when the NBA’s golden era was in full swing. Testing out basketball choreography on the court added a fun layer to the creative process.

For Hoops, Hopes & Dreams, I took inspiration from Indian ink paintings and subtly stylized the character proportions and facial features. Since both stories reflect on past events, the loose, sketchy drawing style and high-contrast visuals leave certain details to the imagination. My hope is that the ink inspired art direction feels both contemporary and timeless and carries a sense of dignity and gravitas fitting for portraying figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Obama. To symbolize the emotional and historical progression of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King’s story is steeped in darkness, reflecting the injustice of his era, while the President Obama sequence is brighter and more hopeful, with Dr. King’s yellow hue woven into the environment to echo his influence on the world.