This is a screengrab from the new animated short film, "POW!" by Joey Clift, which takes viewers to a powwow from a kid's perspective. Credit: Courtesy of Joey Clift

Daniel Herrera Carbajal
ICT

A new film by writer/director Joey Clift offers a glimpse into what a powwow is like through the eyes of a young Native kid.

Clift’s new movie –  “POW!” – is an animated short about a young Native kid trying to find a place to charge his video game console at a bustling intertribal powwow. 

The short film was created by a largely Indigenous team, and features a unique blend of animation styles including pixel-based art reminiscent of old-school Super Nintendo games and Native American ledger art.

Clift is a TV writer, director, Emmy-nominated producer, and a citizen of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Joey created, directed, and wrote “Gone Native,” a Comedy Central series about microaggressions Native folks often experience, and his short films have been screened from places ranging from Just For Laughs to the Smithsonian Museum.

He told ICT that he wanted to make a comedy with Native people at the front and center of the story.

“I work in the entertainment industry and I’ve been making cartoons for probably like 10 years for places like Netflix, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and I grew up really loving comedy cartoons like ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy,’” he said. “But I never really was able to write or create that kind of thing with Native characters and a contemporary Native story front and center. I wanted to make something that could show that Native kids can be as funny as Bart Simpson. Native stories can be as funny as ‘Looney Tunes.’”

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Clift has written for “Spirit Rangers” and “Molly of Denali.” He told ICT that having a primarily Indigenous team for a project like “POW!” helped the creative process.

“It’s so fantastic working with a largely Indigenous team on a short like this, partly because if I want to make a film that takes place at a powwow I can know that most of my team has been to a powwow, they know what a powwow sounds like,” he said. “And then being able to have that back and forth of talking about not just the professional aspects of what we want the movie to be, but also that this is our opportunity to create a big, cool Native animated short. What do we as a collective group of indigenous people working on this want to say?”

“POW!” is currently making the rounds on the film festival circuit and will be premiering in the fall of 2025. 

Daniel Herrera Carbajal is a Multimedia Journalist for the ICT Newscast and ictnews.org. Carbajal is based out of ICT Southwest headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.