‘Powwow People,’ a New Documentary at SIFF from Sky Hopinka

“Put this song in the documentary, Sky! This is the one.”

So says Ruben Little Head, the veteran powwow emcee whose resonant, booming voice is the first we hear in Sky Hopinka’s immersive and illuminating documentary Powwow People. We hear him before we see him, and Little Head and his big voice leave a deep impression, becoming not just a key part of Hopinka’s film, but a charismatic figure in his own right who instantly feels like an iconic part of modern documentary cinema. 

In even just those opening moments, we hear both playfulness and poetic wit in how Little Head breaks down the wall between Hopinka, himself, and us as the audience, shifting from being master of ceremonies, into a role as codirector of sorts. What follows—a vibrant, vérité-style documentary about a powwow that took place over three days in August 2023 at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle—is a work built on collaboration between not just Little Head and Hopinka, but those like the hardworking coordinator Gina Bluebird-Stacona, who brought them and everyone else together. They did so with the explicit purpose of making a documentary about the experience; it plays in Seattle May 16 and 17 in the 2026 Seattle International Film Festival. 

“The idea of putting on our own powwow just became really interesting,” says the Ferndale-born Hopinka. A Ho-Chunk and Pechanga artist and filmmaker who won the prestigious MacArthur fellowship in 2022, he sought to make a film that was defined by a greater sense of participation as opposed to merely just dropping in on what was already playing out. “Rather than parachuting in like anthropologists, we made the powwow part of the film and just ran it like a powwow.”

For Little Head, he views his role as channeling the many parts of powwow. There are dancers and singers just as there are vendors and observers, all of whom come together for a gathering that is grounded in more than a century of celebrating and honoring the many multitudes of Indigenous culture. No two powwows are the same, but there is often a need for an energetic emcee like Little Head to narrate the proceedings.

“It’s not about me, it’s about powwow people,” Little Head says, referring to actual people and not the title of the film. “A really good emcee will gravitate all the other aspects of the powwow. If there is a really good voice, a really good speaker, entertainer, educator, all the above, he’s like the quarterback of the whole event. If you’ve got a good quarterback, a [Patrick] Mahomes, everything else is going to fall into place.”

Little Head has given much of his life to becoming such a quarterback and is now considered one of the go-to emcees on the powwow circuit. He says he formerly had a more stable—and lucrative—career working behind a desk. But that job didn’t allow him the freedom to travel for powwows. So he left and hit the open road. Hopinka’s documentary is also a record of the years of work he’s put in.  Little Head says the film captures “the heart and integrity of powwow,” showing the work that goes into putting on the event, just as it does the joy he aims to bring as emcee. In other words, there is plenty of reverence and tradition that gets balanced with a healthy amount of playful teasing. 

“When we tease, you gotta be able to tease in a good way that you’re also teaching. You’re never disrespecting, you’re never humiliating, you always keep a balance in everything,” Little Head says. “I think even in the documentary, they catch me before I go to the stage and I touch the ground. Those kinds of little things, those protocols, they were taught to me by my elders.”

Powwow People is a film of joyous juxtapositions, between past and present, the traditions being passed down and the logistics required to do so. To Bluebird-Stacona, who we see driving around in a golf cart in the documentary in order to ensure everything goes smoothly and all feel welcome, the top choice for the powwow emcee was always going to be Little Head.

“He’s funny, but he’s also sincere. He knows powwow, and he knows how things need to be done,” Bluebird-Stacona says. “He knows how to keep everything moving and flowing. If there is a time in the powwow where we need more time to take care of something, he knows how to handle that. He really does bring that heart and spirit into the arena, onto the dance floor. We knew that he would be that voice that we would need for the documentary.”

While the documentary welcomes people into the experience of this particular powwow, Bluebird-Stacona says it’s not about compromising to make itself palatable to outside audiences. Anyone can come to it, but the specificity and authenticity of the portrait remain at the forefront. 

“It’s about Natives, it’s about powwow circle, it’s for Native people. This isn’t for somebody’s educational purposes. It’s something we are going to share with one another,” Bluebird-Stacona says. “The documentary brings a lot of pride, and also laughter and a lot of emotions. To see the people that you care about and the people that you consider family portrayed in the way that they’re portrayed on screen, it’s beautiful.”

It’s this care that gives Powwow People its power as a film. The portrait feels as richly detailed as the works of the late Frederick Wiseman, as evocatively emotional as RaMell Ross’s recent Hale County This Morning, This Evening, and also, in the end, like an experience that’s entirely its own. To hear it from Hopinka, the point was for the film to be shot from right in the heart of the powwow, rather than from the outside. 

“The idea of the embodied camera is very important to me. Just this idea that somebody is making these choices and this is a very subjective way of looking at the world,” Hopinka says. “We’re not making a powwow to film it from all angles, like a fishbowl. Rather, we’re part of the structure of this.… Those moments where Ruben is talking to me, I never once thought, ‘Oh, pretend like I’m not here, pretend I’m not here.’ It was always nice to have those sorts of acknowledgments throughout. The opening of the film, and even the ending of it too, there’s always this idea of presence or this awareness of the cameras.”

As for Little Head, the infectious joy heard in his voice in the opening can still be heard all the way through to its conclusion—an exhilarating and virtuosic extended sequence of a final dance witnessed without cuts. That joy is also present in conversation off camera. Just as he does at one key point in the documentary, he reflects seriously on how quickly time can pass. You blink and years go by. But no matter how many times we all blink, Little Head will be there to lend his booming voice. 

“I love what I do,” says Little Head. “I’ll do it as long as I can.”