About the Film
The ghosts from your past will catch up to you. So will the donuts.
“Save a mile for yourself. Honor your own life.”
Single mother Beck has been running from reality. Her “breakfast of champions” is a 5 cream, 5 sugar coffee, and donuts. Something has to give and it does when Beck finds herself in a diabetic coma and visited by a ghostly ancestor, the legendary Indigenous marathon runner Tom Longboat, who becomes her wise-cracking new life coach. Told with a lighthearted touch, Run Woman Run is a feel-good anti-rom-com about a woman who has to tackle the ghosts of her past before she can run toward a new future.
Zoe Hopkins – Writer / Director
Critically acclaimed writer/director Zoe Hopkins is a Heiltsuk and Mohawk woman whose personal connections to these communities serve as inspiration for her work. Born in her mother’s community of Bella Bella, a fishing village on the coast of BC, Zoe is now raising her son in her father’s community of Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, where she has dedicated herself to learning and now teaching Kanyen’kéha (the Mohawk language).
Hopkins drew upon her personal connection to the Great Bear Rainforest for her award-winning first feature film, Kayak to Klemtu, which was distributed theatrically by Mongrel Media and can now be streamed on CBC Gem.
Zoe wrote her sophomore feature film Run Woman Run as an anti-rom-com set on the Six Nations reserve, wanting to see a woman on screen find self-love before the romantic kind. Finishing the film remotely in a global pandemic was difficult, but Zoe was spurred on by the film’s themes: to be grateful, to honour the earth, and to live a good life.
Recently, Zoe was a writer and consulting producer on CBC’s dramatic series Trickster, based on the much-celebrated book Son of a Trickster, by Eden Robinson. She’s a member of the Writer’s Guild of Canada, and is currently in development on a new series.
Hopkins holds a BAA in Film from Ryerson University, and is an alumna of the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program. Her films have screened Internationally at festivals including Sundance, Berlinale, TIFF Kids, and Edinburgh. In 2014, her inventive and affectionate Mohawk language homage to Star Wars won the #TIFFStarWarsDay contest.
Selected Honours- From Kayak to Klemtu
Audience Choice Award: imagineNATIVE Film Festival (2017)
Best Canadian First Feature Film: Victoria International Film Festival (2018)
Best Director: American Indian Film Festival (2018)
Nominations
Best Direction in a Motion Picture: Leo Awards (2018)
Best Screenwriter in a Motion Picture: Leo Awards (2018)