SIFF Reviews: “Are You Native?” “Powwow People”

Published 11:50 am Wednesday, June 10, 2026

When it comes to curating and programming — choosing which films get put into a certain category or get paired with another film for the maximum movie-goer experience — the folks over at Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) are doing everything right, because these two great documentaries (short doc and feature-length doc) that came out in this year’s SIFF are both Indigenous-made, both related to the Puget Sound and both feature (in some capacity) the master of Master of Ceremonies Reuben Little Head doing what he does best as a popular Powwow host throughout the west.

The beauty is, while one gives you a first-hand look at what happens at a powwow, the other shows that, for some, there may be a disconnect from the dancing events and a focus on forging one’s own path when it comes to reconnecting with your roots.

“Are You Native?”

“Are You Native?” is a short doc that was chosen to open “Powwow People” at the SIFF cinemas and it is such a great little film. A personal time piece, a vulnerable insight into one woman’s journey through her identity, her grief and her calling as a successful moccasin maker who has created a community for herself in Bozeman, Montana.

“Are You Native?” is directed by Victoria Cheyenne (Aymara), but when I first began watching the short doc, I was instantly captured by the personal video letters from the doc’s subject, Shauna White Bear (Arikara), whose nostalgic ‘90s footage of herself as a young teen setting up her home video camera, walking back to sit at her designated spot on her bed and speaking straight to camera — straight to her father — were intertwined with modern video diary of White Bear doing the same thing but now as a grown woman; The filmmaking felt so personal that, I initially believed that White Bear was the doc’s sole director.

I had the pleasure and privilege to interview Cheyenne and White Bear together during this year’s SIFF and it is now obvious why I had this belief – the two are not only great friends, they have a connection that is threaded into each and every scene and sequence. Cheyenne tells White Bear’s story the way White Bear stitches together her custom moccasins; with an expert, caring hand.

The two became friends after Cheyenne was attending Tribeca Film Festival and, after following her on TikTok for sometime, had reached out to White Bear to borrow a pair of moccasins to wear to the film festival after an Indigenous producer had been removed from the Cannes Film Festival for wearing moccasins on the red carper as they were considered too informal. White Bear gave her a pair and soon the two had begun making videos together.

“I wasn’t really interested in doing a documentary that was a sit-down interview with Shauna with a bunch of b-roll of everyone working in the workshop,” said Cheyenne. “I was determined to kind of go deeper with it, and Shauna was really open to that.”

White Bear had spent the majority of her childhood in Puyallup and Pierce County, and when she was young, her father left their family. She began recording video letters with the intention to send them to him but she never did. It would be years before she reconnected with him and found her way to connecting with her Arikara roots, and the doc shows these moments in such a raw, open way, intercut with White Bear running through trails of her beloved Bozeman and walking the grounds of a crowded powwow.

Effective, personal and a beautiful insight into one’s place in the world, “Are You Native?” was a stand-out short doc at SIFF 2026.

For more information, visit siff.net/festival/are-you-native.

“Powwow People”

While Cheyenne’s documentary was about one aspect of the Indigenous experience with a laser-focused lens, “Powwow People,” directed by Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians), steps back and shows the viewer a day at a local powwow, specifically the Midsummer Powwow at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle.

Hopinka, who was raised in Ferndale, Washington, said in an interview that he would often go to the Daybreak Star Powwow as a kid.

“That was one of the stops that we’d make on the powwow trail, so it’s pretty familiar, and when we had an opportunity to film there, we just took it because I mean, it’s just a beautiful location, it has a really rich history and it just made sense for the purposes of the film,” he said.

With long dance scenes intercut with candid scenes of children playing and practicing, elders spectating and MC Little Head’s eternal orations tying each sequence with the next, the film is a lovely, devoted portrait of a diverse arena of Indigenous dances, drum groups and singers, where dancers from all over the nation come together to share their traditional dances and songs.

Hopinka, who dances Northern Traditional Style, says that powwows are an event made up of traditional elements and progressive ones.

“They’re incorporating certain traditional elements from certain tribes, but at the same time, they’re also, over the last 150 years, like they’re changing, they’re evolving,” he said. “There’s nothing really stagnant about them, they’re always very responsive to the communities that host them.”

As jingle dancers, fancy shawl dancers, chicken dancers, grass dancers and, most adorably, tiny tot dancers move in and out of the frame, interviews are included that shine light on the different perspectives and insights into the powwow experience, making this documentary as entrancing as it is winsome, showing just how open and fun a powwow event is for the uninitiated and how important it is for those who give these events their marvel.

For more information, visit siff.net/festival/powwow-people.

While SIFF is over for the year, powwows are taking place throughout King County this summer, including the Muckleshoot Veterans Pow-Wow from June 26-28 at the Muckleshoot Pow-Wow Grounds in Auburn, and the 37th Annual Indian Days Powwow from July 17-19 at Daybreak Star in Seattle.