Barnes Cinema: Powwow People by Sky Hopinka
Sunday, November 8, 1 – 4pm
$15; members and students free
About the Event
Today’s program features Powwow People (2025), directed by acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians). Exploring the textures, movement, and collective presence of the powwow, this feature-length documentary reflects on a beloved, complicated community and the continuities of Native life. A discussion with Hopinka will follow the screening, along with an audience Q&A, moderated by producer John Cardellino.
Held in the Comcast NBCUniversal Auditorium, this program is presented alongside Hopinka’s site-specific installation, Red Metal Dust, in the Annenberg Court, and includes access to the collection and Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America.
About the Film
Powwow People (2025)
Directed by Sky Hopinka
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 this film. The film culminates in a 30-minute unbroken shot of a Northern Traditional dance special, drawing the viewer into the textures, movement, and collective presence of the powwow.
Duration: 129 min.
Speaker
Sky Hopinka
Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, and spent a number of years in California, Wisconsin, and Oregon. In Portland, he studied and taught Chinuk Wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His work centers on personal perspectives of Indigenous homelands and landscapes.
Moderator
John Cardellino
Cardellino is an independent producer and the founder of future perfect limited, a US-based film and art production studio. He produced Hopinka’s Powwow People, which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Previously, Cardellino served as producer of the Sundance Institute’s Art of Nonfiction Initiative, a program supporting inventive artistic practice in documentary filmmaking. He earned an MFA in curatorial practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and has taught graduate-level filmmaking courses at Johns Hopkins University.
Curator
Maori Karmael Holmes
Today’s program is curated by Holmes, chief executive and artistic officer of BlackStar Projects. She has organized screenings at Anthology Film Archives and the Whitney Museum, as well as exhibitions at ICA and Pearlstein Gallery.
Sponsor
Support of Barnes Cinema is generously provided by Philadelphia City Fund’s 2026 Milestone Grant Fund, supported by PECO.
Go Further
Daily Gallery Talks
Every day, our gallery specialists offer talks about the Barnes collection. Learn more about our history, founder, and collection.
Deep Dive: Radio Nurse by Isamu Noguchi
An in-depth discussion about the designer’s 1937 baby monitor. Free with admission; Roberts Gallery
Barnes Cinema: Tiguex by Raven Chacon
Our film series continues with the 2026 documentary capturing the Pulitzer Prize–winning composer’s citywide symphony.