Credits

Directors: Sugarcane

Synopsis

An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.

Biography

Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, filmmaker and student of Salish art and history. His first documentary, Sugarcane, directed alongside Emily Kassie, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where NoiseCat and Kassie won the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary. A member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, he is concurrently finishing his first book, We Survived the Night, which will be published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Emily Kassie is an Emmy- and Peabody-nominated filmmaker and investigative journalist. Kassie shoots, directs and reports stories on geopolitical conflict, humanitarian crises, and 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 the Taliban’s crackdown on women, garnering multiple Edward R. Murrow, World Press Photo, and National Press Photographers awards. Following the economic exploitation of the refugee crisis, she won the Overseas Press Club and National Magazine awards. Her first documentary on intermarriage in post-genocide Rwanda won the Student Academy Award.