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Sugarcane

Directors

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie

Executive Producers

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

Producers

Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn

Editor

Nathan Punwar

Cinematographer

Emily Kassie

Set amidst a ground-breaking investigation into abuse and death at an Indian residential school, Sugarcane is an epic cinematic portrait of a community undergoing a moment of international reckoning. In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves near an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada sparked a national outcry about the forced separation, assimilation, and abuse many children experienced at this network of segregated boarding schools designed to erode the culture and social fabric of Indigenous communities. When Kassie, a journalist and filmmaker, asked her old friend and colleague, NoiseCat, to direct a film documenting the Williams Lake First Nation investigation of St Joseph’s Mission, she never imagined how close this story was to his family.

As the investigation continued, Emily and Julian traveled back to the rivers, forests, and mountains of his homelands to hear the myriad stories of survivors. During production, Julian’s story became integral to this multi-layered community portrait. Kassie and NoiseCat encountered both the extraordinary pain these individuals had to suppress as a tool for survival and the unique beauty of a group of people finding the strength to persevere, and the love that endures within their families despite the revelation of genocide.

Saturday, June 15: Post-screening discussion with co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat, Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Anya Montiel, moderated by Dana Hedgpeth, Reporter, The Washington Post.

SUGARCANE Director Julian Brave NoiseCat. (Photo by Emily Kassie)

Julian Brave NoiseCat

Co-director, Sugarcane

Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, filmmaker, and student of Salish art and history. His first documentary, Sugarcane, co-directed with Emily Kassie, investigates abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school his family attended near Williams Lake, British Columbia. A proud Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen member and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, he is finishing his first book, We Survived the Night. It will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in North America, Profile Books in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, Albin Michel in France, and Aufbau Verlag in Germany.

NoiseCat’s journalism has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. He has received numerous awards, including the 2022 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which honors excellence in long-form, narrative, or deep reporting on underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups in America. In 2021, he was named to the TIME100 Next list of emerging leaders.

Before focusing on writing and filmmaking, NoiseCat was a political strategist, policy analyst, and cultural organizer. In 2019, he helped lead a grassroots effort to bring an Indigenous canoe journey to San Francisco Bay to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Alcatraz Occupation. Working with leaders from Indian Country, the progressive movement, and environmental movements, NoiseCat helped turn the idea of appointing Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary into a successful campaign. When Haaland was sworn in, she became the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history.

SUGARCANE Director Emily Kassie. (Photo by James K. Lowe)

Emily Kassie

Co-director, Sugarcane

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 awards from Edward R. Murrow, World Press Photo, and National Press Photographers. Her multimedia feature on the economic exploitation of the Syrian and West African refugee crises won the Overseas Press Club Award. It 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.