Sugarcane
A gutting, unshakeable Sundance winner on the horrors of residential schools, centering on the abuse suffered at the hands of the St. Joseph Mission in British Columbia and the decades of silence that followed.
Director Julian Brave NoiseCat scheduled to attend.
“‘Sugarcane’ is something more meaningful than a mere history lesson. It’s a portrait of what remains when injustice occurs.” —Esther Zuckerman, indieWire
Essential viewing. This gripping investigation, beginning in 2021 of unmarked graves at the notorious and now closed St. Joseph’s Mission residential school, unearths secrets below and above ground, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve, including the film’s co-director, first-time feature filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat (Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie), whose father is a survivor of the school. Sugarcane reminds us that Indigenous history is essential in understanding the complete landscape of historical truths across Turtle Island, also known as North America.
- Director: Julian Brave NoiseCat (Secwepemc Nation), Emily Kassie
- Country: USA, Canada
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 107 min.
- Producer: Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn
- Cinematographers: Emily Kassie, Christopher LaMarca
- Editors: Nathan Punwar, Maya Daisy Hawke
- Music: Mali Obomsawin
- Awards: Sundance Film Festival 2024 (Best Director, US Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision)
- Filmography: Both: Debut Feature Film
- Language: English, Secwepemctsín
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- US Distributor: NatGeo
- International Sales: Submarine