Mika: Into the Unknown

Mika is a juvenile hawksbill sea turtle alone in an ocean she has never known.

Her journey begins in violence — spun through a whirlpool, spat into contaminated water on the edge of an industrial coast. She hides inside human debris. A plastic bag with a printed smile nearly kills her. Everything in this world is wrong, and none of it belongs there.

As she moves deeper, the ocean changes. The pollution recedes. Giants pass overhead — a school of fish like a living ceiling, a whale in the far distance — and something shifts. Fear becomes awe. When a shark hunts nearby and she hides between rocks, she notices a light in the distance. The danger has not passed. She goes toward the light anyway. It is the first decision she makes for herself.

Following a silhouette she can barely see, Mika crosses into a world of coral and warmth. She loses the silhouette. She is alone again in the most beautiful place she has ever been. And then she turns — and finds them.

The film ends before she arrives. The journey is enough.