Sugarcane

An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in Canada sparks a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve, in this 2025 Oscar®-nominated documentary.

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. Premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary, Sugarcane is now nominated for Best Documentary at the 2025 Academy Awards®.

In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves was discovered on the grounds of an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada, sparking a national outcry and setting off searches across North America. After years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation and abuse many children experienced at these segregated boarding schools was finally coming to light. When Kassie, a journalist and filmmaker, asked her old friend and colleague, NoiseCat, to help her document the Williams Lake First Nation investigation of St Joseph’s Mission, she never imagined just how close this story was to his own family.

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.