SUGARCANE
CANADIAN THEATRICAL PUBLICITY
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 experienced at these segregated boarding schools was brought to light, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities. Set amidst a groundbreaking investigation, SUGARCANE illuminates the heartbreak and beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to survive.
SUGARCANE is the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie and produced by Oscar®-nominated producer Kellen Quinn. The film opens in U.S. and Canadian theaters this August and UK cinemas in September, and will premiere on National Geographic, Hulu and Disney+ later this fall.
SUGARCANE is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning, an important film that we are proud to be supporting in Canada for its theatrical release in 2024.
Ed Archie NoiseCat grapples with the shocking truth of his secretive birth at St. Joseph's Mission Indian residential school. (Credit: Emily Kassie/Sugarcane Film LLC)
National Geographic Documentary Films’ forthcoming film SUGARCANE, from first-time director and TIME100 Next honoree Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emmy®- and Peabody-nominated investigative journalist, director, producer and cinematographer Emily Kassie releases in North American theatres starting August 9, 2024. SUGARCANE will be released by Variance Films in the U.S. and by Films We Like in Canada.
“Enlightening and infuriating” (Variety), SUGARCANE is an epic, nuanced and sensitive cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. Amidst the groundbreaking investigation into abuse and deaths at an Indian residential school in Canada, the film’s courageous participants break cycles of intergenerational trauma by facing painful, long-ignored truths and rebuilding broken family bonds.
After making its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year — where it won the U.S. Documentary Competition Directing Award — the film went on to receive the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award from the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the 2024 Filmmaker Award from the Margaret Mead Film Festival. To date, SUGARCANE has won over a dozen awards, including Best Documentary Feature Awards from Mountainfilm, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival and Sarasota Film Festival, along with Special Jury Prizes at the Seattle International Film Festival and the International Film Festival of Boston.
SUGARCANE has been celebrated by critics, calling it “the product of humane and insightful filmmakers who are determined to never let anyone forget” (Variety) and “as much a piece of art about the sins of the past as it is about living with the memory of those sins in the present” (IndieWire).
TEAM
JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT | DIRECTOR
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. A proud 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 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 dozens of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker and has been recognized with many awards including the 2022 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which honors "excellence in long-form, narrative or deep reporting on stories about underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups in the present American landscape." In 2021, NoiseCat was named to the TIME100 Next list of emerging leaders alongside the starting point guard of his fantasy basketball team, Luka Doncic. Before turning full-time to 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. Eighteen canoes representing communities from as far north as Canada and as far west as Hawaii participated in the journey, which was covered by dozens of local and national media outlets, including The New York Times. In 2020, he was the first to publicly suggest that Deb Haaland should be appointed Interior Secretary. Working with leaders from Indian Country as well as the progressive and environmental movements, NoiseCat helped turn the idea into a sophisticated inside-outside campaign that drew support from celebrities, activists and even a few conservative politicians. When Haaland was sworn in she became the first Native American cabinet secretary in United States history.
EMILY KASSIE | DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, CINEMATOGRAPHER
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.
KELLEN QUINN | PRODUCER
Kellen Quinn is an Oscar®-nominated producer whose credits include Garrett Bradley's Time (Oscar® nominated; Sundance 2020 winner of the Directing Award, US Documentary Competition), Luke Lorentzen's A Still Small Voice (Sundance 2023 winner of the Directing Award, US Documentary Competition), and Midnight Family (shortlisted for Documentary Feature Oscar®; Sundance 2019 winner of Special Jury Award for Cinematography, US Documentary Competition), Asher Levinthal’s Shaken (DOC NYC 2023), Noah Hutton’s In Silico (DOC NYC 2020), Daniel Hymanson’s So Late So Soon (True/False 2020) and Viktor Jakovleski's Brimstone & Glory (True/False 2017; aired on POV). Kellen was selected for the Dear Producer Award in 2023 and DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 class in 2020. In 2017 and 2018, he participated in the Sundance Documentary Creative Producing Lab and Fellowship. In 2016, he was among six producers selected for Impact Partners’ Documentary Producers Fellowship. With Luke Lorentzen, Kellen co-founded the independent production company Hedgehog Films.
CHRISTOPHER LAMARCA | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Christopher LaMarca is a director and Emmy®-nominated cinematographer currently based in Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest. His work has screened in top festivals worldwide including SXSW, Berlinale, The Museum of Modern Art, True/False, and Hot Docs, and has received several special jury awards including being nominated for Cinema Eye Honors. Christopher was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine and is a Sundance Institute Edit and Story Lab film fellow. After 10 years on the road as an award-winning magazine photojournalist (Time / Rolling Stone/ GQ), his monograph, Forest Defenders: the Confrontational American Landscape was published by powerHouse Books. Compelled to translate his photography work to the screen, Christopher switched media and brought his intimate and raw visual aesthetic to film. His love for immersive observational filmmaking and sonic soundscapes weave in and out of some of the most pressing social and cultural issues of the moment. Recently Christopher served as the Director of Photography on the documentary series Nuclear Family, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and is currently streaming on HBO Max.