“The powwow’s about to start. Why don’t you put that game away?”

As if. The young gamer who stars in “Pow!” Joey Clift ’s short new film couldn’t care less about those boisterous, busy Indigenous cultural gatherings .

“I didn’t understand why I was there, except Mom was trying to bore me,” the Cowlitz writer and filmmaker remembered of his boyhood experience at powwows. “You don’t realize how very cool and special it is that your parents and family are trying to share this thing with you.”

Fortunately, Clift figured it out as he grew up. “Pow!” his animated eight-minute film, is the first of its kind to portray a modern powwow, let alone do it with realism and respect, he said.

Clift will be on hand to talk about the project when the film screens 2 p.m. Saturday during the Portlan

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