Movies Similar to Pow Wow Summer

Once Were Warriors(1994)

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

Cold Journey(1975)

In this feature drama, a Canadian Indigenous youth attempts to find a place for himself. He faces culture shock as the educational system teaches him to be a white man and tries to find a way of life more meaningful to his Indigenous culture and ancestry.

Universal VIP(2012)

Still working through the grief of losing her only child, Thelma, a young Blackfeet woman in Browning, MT, is taken advantage of by friends who use her as de facto child care while they continue to live the freewheeling lifestyles they had before becoming parents.

Birds of Passage(2018)

During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.

10,000 BC(2008)

A prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls(1995)

Summoned from an ashram in Tibet, Ace finds himself on a perilous journey into the jungles of Africa to find Shikaka, the missing sacred animal of the friendly Wachati tribe. He must accomplish this before the wedding of the Wachati's Princess to the prince of the warrior Wachootoos. If Ace fails, the result will be a vicious tribal war.

Bones of Crows(2023)

Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.

Libérés(2020)

Dead Man(1995)

William Blake, an accountant turned fugitive, is on the run. During his travels, he meets a Native American man called Nobody, who guides him on a journey to the spiritual world.

Atikamekw Suns(2024)

Manawan, 1977. A vehicle falls into a river near a Native community. Two Quebecers managed to escape, but five Atikamekws lost their lives. While the police conclude that it was an accident, the victims’ families are left with unanswered questions. A historical, poetic and choral tale, Soleils Atikamekw is inspired by the dreams, impressions and memories of the relatives of the five victims. In an intimate, humanistic approach, the filmmaker involves the families both in front of and behind the camera. Documentary and fiction come together in a deeply moving film about grief, injustice and memory.

1492: Conquest of Paradise(1992)

1492: Conquest of Paradise depicts Christopher Columbus’ discovery of The New World and his effect on the indigenous people.

Rustic Oracle(2019)

Set in the late 90s, Rustic Oracle is a dramatic feature about Ivy, an 8-year-old girl trying to understand what happened to her big sister who has vanished from their small Mohawk community. With minimal clues, Ivy and her mother Susan embark on an unwelcome journey to find Heather which will ultimately bring the pair closer together despite challenging circumstances. Behind the story of desperation, told through the eyes of a child, lies one of hope, growth, awakening and love.

El Norte(1983)

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

This Place(2022)

Living in the liminal space between worlds, two young women find themselves falling in love for the first time, while also being forced to unexpectedly confront their families, each complicated by legacies of love and loss.

No Word For Worry(2014)

As a sea nomad, Hook grew up with the ocean as his universe. Now he must make a courageous voyage to salvage the remains of his dying culture

The Wind & the Reckoning(2022)

As an outbreak of leprosy engulfs 19th-century colonial Hawai'i, a small group of infected Native Hawaiians resist government-mandated exile, taking a courageous stand against the provisional government. Inspired by real-life events.

Robinson Crusoe(1997)

Robinson Crusoe flees Britain on a ship after killing his friend over the love of Mary. A fierce ocean storm wrecks his ship and leaves him stranded by himself on an uncharted island. Left to fend for himself, Crusoe seeks out a tentative survival on the island, until he meets Friday, a tribesman whom he saves from being sacrificed. Initially, Crusoe is thrilled to finally have a friend, but he has to defend himself against the tribe who uses the island to sacrifice tribesman to their gods. During time their relationship changes from master-slave to a mutual respected friendship despite their difference in culture and religion.

Eternal Ashes(2011)

ETERNAL ASHES tells the story of a mother, Ana and her daughter, Elena. Although they are separated, in the space and time they remain united forever. The people and the millenarian culture of Yanomami are the framework of this story about the unbreakable bonds of filiations. After an accident in the furious flow of the mythical Orinoco River, in the fifties, Ana was considered dead. Elena as an adult and facing the negligible possibility that her mother is alive decides to leave to the Amazon to search her. ETERNAL ASHES is a story of filiations, poetry, wisdom and especially of humanity.

Bootlegger(2021)

Mani, a master’s student, returns to the reserve in northern Quebec where she grew up. Her painful past resurfaces. Resolved to reintegrate into the community, she gets involved in the debate around a referendum on allowing the free sale of alcohol on the reserve. Laura, a bootlegger, pockets the profits she makes there under the protection of the band council and her partner Raymond. The latter is still angry with Mani, whom he holds responsible for the death of his daughter in a fire. Opposing forces quickly divide the community into two sides who face each other to determine the best path to independence.

Embrace of the Serpent(2015)

The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.