Korean Premiere

 SYNOPSIS
Martha & Niki is a Dance Documentary about two young women who conquers theworld through Hip hop. The whole Street Dance scene has always been dominated bymen. Until now, finally, we have two women who are the center of attraction. Martha and Niki are the first females in history to become World-Champions of Hip Hop street dance.In the film we will follow their struggle to gain recognition, to achieve their goals anddreams, and we get to experience what it takes to make it not only on the dance floor, butin an arena where there are very few women. This is not a film about winning or losing, it isa film about doing what you believe in! After havingbeen infatuated by each other, reality hits and they start to realize how different theyactually are, and that their relationship is not as easy to handle as they would havethought.

PROGRAM NOTE

 Martha & Niki is a road documentary that follows the exciting journey of two African-Swedish women hip-hop dancers. In a hip-hop competition held in Stockholm, Martha & Niki win the championship after continuously competing against male hip-hop duos. They get qualified to represent Sweden in the World Street Dance Championships in Paris and become the champions after beating all the male hip-hop dancers. They also land in second place in a hip-hop battle in New York and have the honor of being a part of the jury for a men’s hip-hop competition in Czech where Niki criticizes that women are missing in the Czech hip-hop scene. What she means by that is since there are many different hip-hop styles and dancers may have different preferences, it is nonsense to have a hip-hop competition only open to male dancers. After enjoying a family trip in Greece, Martha & Niki arrive in South Africa as they are invited to teach a hip-hop workshop at an orphanage in Soweto. Martha who was born in Uganda and grew up in Sweden and Niki who was born in Ethiopia and adopted to a Swedish family throw off their “fake African” disguise and reconcile with their African-Swedish identity while dancing with the children of Soweto.

 The film is filled with the interviews on Martha & Niki’s friendship and love for dance, the conflicts between them, being women dancers in a male-dominated hip-hop scene, and their African-Swedish identity. Their intense, provocative, and restrained dance moves become an act of self-improvement that can heal them, free them, and help them expressing themselves while breaking free from the society’s normalization and objectification of women’s body. (Sunah KIM)