SIFF Dispatch #7: Music, Movement, and Community in Sky Hopinka's Powwow People

POWWOW PEOPLE
(Sky Hopinka, USA, 2025,
88 minutes)

It takes a village to make a feature, and Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk, Pechanga) assembled the equivalent to make Powwow People; one in front of the camera and the other behind the scenes. 

Adam Piron (Kiowa, Mohawk), Sterlin Harjo (Seminole, Muscogee)--the creator of Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown–and other prominent Native American figures helped to produce the documentary, Hopinka's second full-length after 2020's maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore. 

Danny Glover's Louverture Films, known for backing projects of cultural importance, also loaned their support. Julian Brave NoiseCat (Secwepemc), the co-director of 2024's Sugarcane, even shows up as a dancer in the film. 

Since 2014, Ferndale-born Hopinka has worked primarily on short films, seven of which Seattle Film Critics Society presented on May 15 at Northwest Film Forum (below right). Eric Zhu, who put together the program, also presented Hopinka with SFCS's John Hartl Pacific Northwest Spotlight Award on May 17 after a SIFF screening of Powwow People. 

Hopinka built his second feature, which premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival, around an opportunity he created in 2023 for Indigenous singers, dancers, and drummers to come together to celebrate their culture, knowing that he would be documenting the whole thing for posterity.

Though the film plays as one day, the event took place from August 22-24 at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle. Throughout, Hopinka shows the hard work and camaraderie that goes into putting together a powwow, an event with which another recent Pacific Northwest feature culminates: Fancy Dance from Erica Tremblay (Seneca–Cayuga Nation) with Lily Gladstone (Piegan Blackfeet, Nez Perce), the first recipient of the John Hartl Award. 

As a structuring and thematic device, Hopinka follows four individuals: the down-to-Earth Gina Bluebird-Stacona (Oglala Lakota), who works on setup, the avuncular Ruben Little Head (Northern Cheyenne), the master of ceremonies, the soft-spoken Jamie John (Anishinaabe), a jingle dress dancer, and Cozad (Kiowa), a family drum group named after the gracious Freddie Cozad, a veteran drummer who had hoped to attend. He passed away that November, but Hopinka interviewed him earlier in the spring about powwowing, and his words form part of the communal voice-over.  

It says something about the Pacific Northwest that there's so much tribal diversity, though some participants came from as far away as Alberta. 

In his opening remarks, Little Head makes it clear that trans and nonbinary members are welcome--Jamie John describes themselves as gender non-conforming--which recalls Hopinka's Standing Rock short "Dislocation Blues," in which speaker Shaawan Francis Keahna (White Earth Band of Minnesota Ojibwe and Meskwaki) identifies as nonbinary. 

Bearings established, the bulk of the film plays as a riot of color, movement, and sound. Beyond the singers, dancers, and drummers, vendors sell food ("Navajo Fry Bread & Tacos" reads one sign), jewelry, and other handmade items, from t-shirts and hoodies to salmon for two dollars an ounce. 

I particularly enjoyed the free-spirited dancing of the Tiny Tots; most in Native regalia, but a few in conventional summer clothes. Some dance in a traditional manner, others just bop about to "Old McDonald Had a Farm" performed on tribal drums--and all receive "day money" for their efforts.    

I'm sure most of these dancers would perform for cultural and social reasons without the lure of awards, but dancers in every category qualify for prizes including retro jackets and cash--adult dancers can win as much as $4,000. The film ends with an unbroken 30-minute take centered on a special elimination round, adding a little tension to Hopinka's pure cinema approach.  

New Mexico filmmaker Shaandiin Tome (Diné) served as cinematographer, while Hopinka provided additional camera work. The results prove less experimental than I expected based on his short films, but there's always something engaging happening on screen. In his work as a whole, he sometimes blurs images while transitioning from one sequence to another. 

In the case of Powwow People, he mostly applies the blurring to the bright, beaded, shimmering, and feathered costumes. It's a lovely effect. 

Other than the voices in the film and a few on-screen inter-titles, Hopinka doesn't spell anything out explicitly, so Powwow People works more as an experiential documentary than an educational one by allowing viewers to see and hear what it might be like to attend or participate in a powwow. 

I wouldn’t have minded subtitles for song lyrics, but I suspect he left them off intentionally, since there's more focus on sounds than words. Beyond the drumming and chanting, other sounds include the ringing metal cones of the jingle dancers' outfits. 

Of Hopinka's short films, Powwow People most closely resembles 2017's Dislocation Blues and 2021's Kicking the Clouds, particularly when speakers share memories of their ancestors. The film, as a whole, serves as a form of collective memory by capturing ancestral traditions on film while simultaneously creating new ancestral memories for future generations.

Click here for more SIFF 2026 coverage, starting with Mārama.  

There are no more Seattle-area screenings scheduled for Powwow People, but I'll update this post when that changes, streaming opportunities included. Images from Museum of Modern Art, Me (Sky Hopinka), Seattle Met (Ruben Little Head), Michael Sicinski (Tiny Tot), and In Review Online.