Sugarcane
Guests Expected
Directors Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie are expected to attend
Description
Offering searing insights into generational trauma inflicted on Indigenous children, co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat’s documentary feature debut delivers an intimate investigation into the abuse elders in his family and community suffered while attending St. Joseph’s Mission Residential school near Canada’s Sugarcane Reserve. As NoiseCat and co-director Emily Kassie search for answers, the Canadian government continues a revelatory probe into the cases of the institution’s missing and murdered children. The film fearlessly confronts the survivors’ experiences through powerful testimony and difficult conversations as it highlights a community seeking accountability from the government and the Catholic Church and questions whether it is possible to journey out of shame and silence to find forgiveness and healing. NoiseCat and Kassie won the US Documentary directing award at the Sundance Film Festival for their stunning work.
FILM COMMUNITY PARTNER
Oakland native Julian Brave Noisecat was a policy analyst, cultural organizer, and political strategist before switching gears to writing and filmmaking. As a journalist, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. In 2022, he received the American Mosaic Journalist Prize. He is currently at work on his first book, We Survived the Night. Sugarcane is his first feature.
Emily Kassie is an Emmy® and Peabody®-nominated investigative journalist and filmmaker. Kassie shoots, directs and reports stories on geopolitical conflict, humanitarian crises, corruption and the people caught in the crossfire. Her work for The New York Times, PBS Frontline, Netflix, and others ranges from drug and weapons trafficking in the Saharan desert, to immigrant detention in the United States. In 2021, she smuggled into Taliban territory with PBS Newshour correspondent Jane Ferguson to report on their imminent siege of Kabul and targeted killing of female leaders. Her work has been honored with multiple Edward R. Murrow, World Press Photo and National Press Photographers awards. Her multimedia feature on the economic exploitation of the Syrian and West African refugee crises won the Overseas Press Club Award and made her the youngest person to win a National Magazine award. She previously oversaw visual journalism at Highline, Huffington Post’s investigative magazine, and at The Marshall Project. Kassie was named to Forbes 30 under 30 in 2020 and is a 2023 New America fellow. Her first documentary, I Married My Family’s Killer, following couples in post-genocide Rwanda, won a Student Academy Award in 2015.
Film Details
Language English, Secwepemctsín
Year 2024
Premiere California
Runtime 107
Country Canada/USA
Director Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
Executive Producer Bill Way, Elliott Whitton, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Tegan Acton, Emma Pompetti, Grace Lay, Sumalee Montano, Sabrina Merage Naim, Douglas Choi, Adam & Melony Lewis, Meadow Fund, JanaLee Cherneski & Ian Desai, David & Linda Cornfield, Maida Lynn, Robina Riccitiello
Producer Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn
Editor Nathan Punwar, Maya Daisy Hawke
Cinematographer Christopher LaMarca, Emily Kassie
Music Mali Obomsawin
Closed Captions Closed Captions are confirmed for this program
Audio Description Audio Descriptions are not yet confirmed for this program
American Sign Language (ASL) Interpretation American Sign Language Interpretation is not currently scheduled for this film
