Pounamu

A flightless kiwi bird chases a dream through a night landscape and is pulled into a magical world under the sea. Pounamu is the Māori word for New Zealand greenstone, and the film draws on the proverb "Although it is small, it is greenstone." Samuel Schrag, who is Māori and moved from New Zealand to the United States, made it as a film about migration, starting a dream and finding home somewhere unfamiliar. It took five weeks from concept to final export, has no dialogue, and won Gold at Runway's second AI Film Festival.