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Artist and filmmaker Glenn Kaino first heard about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s basketball prowess while he was eating dinner.
Kaino is a longtime collaborator of Tommie Smith, the gold medal-winning track athlete who famously raised his fist from the medal podium during the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner” at the 1968 Summer Olympics. Several years ago, Andrew Young, the politician, civil rights leader and confidant of Dr. King, was honored at the annual gala thrown by Smith’s foundation, the Tommie Smith Youth Initiative. “I am sitting in the back, as I always do, and eating my dinner,” remembers Kaino. “And Andrew Young says, ‘Hey, Tommy, Did I ever tell you the story about how Dr. King and I used to play basketball?’ I just dropped my fork.”
Kaino quickly approached Young about turning this story into a film. Young agreed and, says Kaino, “My first phone call after that was to my producing partner, Michael Latt.”
The result is Hoops, Hopes & Dreams a documentary short that will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and tells the story of how Dr. King and other civil rights activists used basketball to help mobilize the youth. The doc, directed by Kaino and produced by Latt, draws a line between these stories with how President Barack Obama also used basketball to help connect to voters.
“What Michael and I loved about this story was that it brought our heroes down to our level,” says Kaino of the short, which features interviews with Young, Obama aides Michael Strautmanis and Reginald Love, as well as the late basketball star Jerry West. “It really allows not only us to see them inside of us, but us to see ourselves inside of them.”
The film also marks the final project from Latt. The activist and founder of entertainment marketing firm Lead With Love was shot and murdered in November 2023 in his Miracle Mile home. He was 33.
After Latt’s death, Kaino says the film halted production for about six months. Ultimately, the filmmaking team that was assembled by Latt continued forward and finished Hoops, Hopes & Dreams in time for a Jan. 24 premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It is a bittersweet moment for the filmmakers, with the project being complete, but Sundance was the perfect venue to premiere the short.
Latt is the son of beloved Sundance executive Michelle Satter and worked with everyone from Ava DuVernay to Ryan Coogler. Satter, who received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy’s Governor’s awards last year, will also be honored at the festival’s annual gala. “I think that emotionally, for Michael and the family and for us, to premiere there means everything,” says Kaino.
“Michael was the most genuine, humble connector of creative people,” said the director. “If everyone understood the satisfaction and the holistic love that he had for people we would, as a society, be in a better place.”
In addition to Hoops, Hopes & Dreams, Kaino, a longtime Clippers and Lakers fan, recently debuted a sculpture at the Clippers new home, the Intuit Dome, which paid homage to Latt. He says, “Michael was our point guard.”
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