Sugarcane

Winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Directing Award!

A stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life, Sugarcane, the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves was discovered on the grounds of an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada. After years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation and abuse many children experiences at these segregated boarding schools was brought to life, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities. Set amidst a groundbreaking investigation, Sugarcane illuminates the beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to persevere. A National Geographic Documentary Films release. (Dir. by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, 2024, Canada/USA, in English/ Secwepemctsín with English subtitles, 107 mins., Rated R)