Image: Orca Cove Media / Sweet Summer Powwow

By Dylana Kneeshaw

Secwépemc director & actor

Stseptékwles re Sk’elép (Coyote Stories) Indigenous Film Festival opens with ‘Sweet Summer Powwow’

Sep 26, 2025 | 4:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — Organizers of the 4th Annual Stseptékwles re Sk’elép (Coyote Stories) Indigenous Film Festival are rolling out the red carpet Friday night (Sept. 26) for the start of this year’s event. This year’s movie lineup will showcase plenty of Indigenous story-telling, acting and directing, including Secwépemc acting and directing to open up the festival.

Sweet Summer Powwow director Darrell Dennis says the film is a love letter to the area and the culture.

“It’s really personal for me but it’s also really exciting for it to be here in Kamloops and in the Interior because this is kind of where the story is based,” he says, noting many of his early years were spent in the Adams Lake area in the Shuswap and Alkali Lake area near Williams Lake.

“I grew up on kind of an isolated reserve in the Cariboo-Chicoltin and so this is kind of based on my youth, going to all the powwow circuits and as a teenager kind of falling in love every single powwow that I went to every weekend,” says Dennis.

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Among the bright regalia and cinematography is Tk’emlups-based actor Tyler Peters. His character, Sawyer, has a few scenes in the film that Peters says really sparked his interest.

“Definitely, very great switching from serious, into kind of joking, into funny.”

Peters says he was able to draw on his own story for his character’s scenes.

“I was a dancer in the movie and I am a dancer in real life,” he explains, adding that he’s a grass dancer who has taken part in powwows for years now.

Including Sweet Summer Powwow, the 13-year-old has already worked on a half-dozen movies, with more on the way. He has key advice for other aspiring actors.

“Definitely, keep your head up. Don’t think of yourself as this low person who isn’t equal to anybody. You know, my dad told me, ‘You’re a king of your own domain. You don’t let anybody push you out of that,'” Peters says.

Similarly, the director’s vision was to bring Indigenous acting front and centre on the big screen in an uplifting, mainstream Hollywood-style story.

“It’s Indigenous culture represented here but Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people have really fallen in love with this and claimed it. The laughing and the crying. It’s for everybody,” Dennis adds.

The Indigenous Film Festival is on at the Paramount Theatre all weekend and the full movie schedule and tickets are available on the Kamloops Film Society website.