An historic and immersive work of cinema, Powwow People is a vérité-style documentary grounded in the rhythms, relationships, and lived experience of a contemporary Native gathering. Rather than entering as outside observers, the filmmakers organized the powwow itself, inviting dancers, singers, vendors, and community members to participate in the making of the film. The result is a film in which the camera moves fluidly and complicitly among the crowd and around performers, often motivated by the rhythms of percussion circles as well as the deep voice of MC Ruben Little Head, whose irreverent sense of humor helps to illustrate the joy, familiarity, and contemporaneity of a ritual also steeped in ancient tradition.
Presented alongside Sounds of Summer.
