Kipp nominated for American Indian Film Festival Best Actor
Shoshone-Bannock tribal member Stormee Kipp in the film "Sooyii"
By DANA HERNANDEZ
Sho-Ban News
MISSOULA, Mont. — Shoshone-Bannock tribal member, Stormee Kipp has been nominated for a Best Actor award for his role in “Sooyii” at the American Indian Film Festival season 46, where the awards ceremony will be broadcasted virtually November 5.
Sooyii is a Blackfeet word that means “creature/mysterious being.” Kipp plays the role of a young man who survives smallpox while losing his family to the disease and takes place in the 18th century North America. His costar, Cheyenne Gordon was also nominated for Best Actress. Other costars include, Danny Edmo, Jesse Desrosier, and Pat Judge Hall. Krisztian Kery was the director for Sooyii.
Kipp said he spent most of the 2020 summer preparing for the film because he had to learn the Blackfeet language and to also get familiar with the location and cast members, but filming only lasted two weeks.
Kipp, who also comes from the Blackfeet Tribe said he is currently a student at the University of Montana majoring in history and that he first learned about his Best Actor nomination a couple of weeks ago and said, “I was surprised, it’s a pretty cool achievement to achieve.”
Sooyii is Kipp’s debut as an actor and said becoming an actor was never really a dream of his, and that he came into acting because it was an opportunity to do something different.
Acting recently took Kipp to Europe where he just finished filming a movie in Romania. Kipp said he can’t say what movie he was filming, because it has not yet been released for promotion. The advice Kipp has for young Native kids is to “embrace your culture.” Embracing his culture has helped him in a lot of ways and Kipp said, “You know, a lot of people in the world are lost and don’t know their own culture.”
Overall, Kipp said he will be watching the American Indian Film Festival awards ceremony online with his family and that he is just thankful for all the people in his life right now. “There are too many people to thank for my success, we’ll just say that I am thankful for a lot of them,” said Kipp.
“Sooyii” can be purchased and watched online at https://watch.eventive.org beginning on November 5 at 5 p.m. MDT.
