The Story of Sugarcane, Canada’s Oscar Contender

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It follows an inquiry into unmarked graves at a B.C. residential school—and is the first Oscar-nominated film by an Indigenous North American filmmaker.

In May of 2021, news broke about more than 200 unmarked burial sites at a residential school near Kamloops, B.C., sparking a nationwide reckoning with the residential school system. Two months later, a few hundred kilometres northwest, the Williams Lake First Nation began investigating St. Joseph’s Mission, a local residential school that operated for almost a century, to uncover the truth about what happened to the children who’d attended it. The team, led by archaeologist Whitney Spearing and investigator Charlene Belleau, has uncovered accounts of torture, sexual abuse and starvation; at least 55 children died or disappeared while at the school.

Now, a documentary following the inquiry is nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Sugarcane, directed by B.C.’s Julian Brave NoiseCat and Toronto’s Emily Kassie, follows members of the First Nation as they dig through archives, interview survivors, expose institutional cover-ups and even travel to the Vatican to seek an apology from the Catholic Church. During the two years of filming, NoiseCat also explored his own family history. Here, the directors talk about working alongside the Williams Lake First Nations and what their Oscar nomination means for Indigenous storytelling.

Emily, you’re an investigative journalist who’s spent the last decade telling stories about political conflicts, human rights abuses and people caught in the crossfire in places like Afghanistan, Rwanda and Niger. How did you begin this project?

Emily Kassie: The last residential schools closed in 1997, which was my first year of kindergarten—yet I knew next to nothing about them. When the news from Kamloops broke, I felt deeply compelled toward the story. I realized I’d never turned my lens on my own country. I reached out to Julian—we’d previously been cub reporters in a newsroom and were randomly assigned desks next to each other.

In the meantime, I found an article about Chief Willie Sellers and St. Joseph’s Mission. I sent Chief Willie a cold email, and he called me back that afternoon and said, “The creator’s always had great timing. Just yesterday, our council said we need someone to document our search.”

Julian Brave NoiseCat: When I called Em back two weeks later to tell her that I’d be open to collaborating, she told me that she’d identified a First Nation that was beginning its own search at St. Joseph’s Mission near Williams Lake. I was completely shocked, because that’s the school that my family was taken away to and where my father was born.

At what point did you decide to include your family history in the documentary?

NoiseCat: I wasn’t sure if I could touch residential schools in any medium because of my family’s intense connection to them. But the story pulled me in. I moved in with my dad, a man I hadn’t lived with since I was six years old, while we made the film for two years. It became clear that he had questions about the circumstances of his birth and upbringing, and there I was, in a position to help him. In doing so, I also addressed my own pain with his abandonment; my father wasn’t present for much of my life.

Did making the film change your relationship with him?

NoiseCat: It turned a painful story for us into an empowering one and led us to spend a lot more time with each other. I understand him better now, and hopefully it’s helped him understand me more too. He’s become one of my best friends. My dad is a visual artist, so he’s also come to appreciate the film as a work of art.

You’ve screened this film in Parliament, at the White House and in and around Indigenous communities. What did you initially set out to accomplish?

Kassie: We had several goals—nothing short of correcting the record, bringing it to the highest levels of governance and creating dialogue in Indigenous communities. We’re proud that we’ve made significant progress on all fronts. That said, the Catholic Church and the Canadian and U.S. governments still haven’t released their records related to the residential school system.

NoiseCat: Our film breaks new investigative ground on an untold story about what happened to the babies born at St. Joseph’s Mission and a pattern of infanticide, which raises questions about what happened at the 138 other Indian residential schools across Canada and at the 417 across the United States, where there has been scant inquiry and public reckoning. There’s a real need to document and preserve the memory of this cultural genocide, especially as the survivors of these institutions get older.

Do you plan to continue this investigative work?

Kassie: The Williams Lake First Nation is still gathering testimonies and has published an interim findings report. Other investigations are underway across Canada, but funding is in jeopardy with a potential Conservative government coming. This might be one of the last times there’s enough collective will from the government and the public to support finding the truth. In the U.S., former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland led an inquiry while we were making Sugarcane and published a report that, for the first time, counted how many schools existed and how many kids might have died. That work will also halt now that the Trump administration has taken power.

When the film came out, the two of you toured it around the world. What was that like, knowing that so many viewers were learning about residential schools for the first time?

Kassie: This is the origin story of North America, but most of us knew nothing about it. Indigenous communities still suffer the highest rates of suicide, addiction and cycles of violence as a direct result of these schools. It means everything that people are paying attention. We want to celebrate how Indigenous life is beautiful and cinematic, worthy of the big screen.

Julian, you are the first Indigenous North American filmmaker ever nominated for an Oscar. How does that feel?

NoiseCat: I should point out that the heyday of residential schools coincided with the Golden Age of Hollywood, when studios were telling stories about Indians dying at the ends of cowboys’ guns. As Hollywood popularized the idea that natives were a vanishing people, the residential schools tried to make it so in policy. It’s an incredible honour to be the first Indigenous North American filmmaker nominated for an Academy Award. But it’s shocking that this industry—built on our land and partly on misrepresenting our stories—has never celebrated an Indigenous North American filmmaker with a nomination. I hope that I’m not the only one for long.

What was your reaction to hearing that Sugarcane was nominated for an Oscar?

NoiseCat: I was on the West Coast, where they announced the nominations at 5:30 a.m. I was leaving at 6 a.m. to go to the Sundance Film Festival and receive the Vanguard Award for non-fiction. When I got out of the shower, I learned via text messages that I was an Academy Award nominee, which was really crazy. Then I called my dad, Em, our participants and my mom.

Kassie: I was pacing my room. I think I did some push-ups and sit-ups, trying to distract myself from waiting. Then I finally sat down and heard the news. I was desperately trying to reach Julian on FaceTime, but he was in the shower. I called our team and participants and my family, and was just in a state of disbelief and elation at how far we’ve come and how much this story deserves the platform.

How did the participants react?

NoiseCat: Everybody was overjoyed. Willie was crying, my dad was over the moon. Charlene Belleau, one of the investigators, was the first person to demand accountability more than 30 years ago. She’s recognized the power and importance of speaking this truth long before it was cool or supported by policy. Being nominated just confirms what Charlene has known for so long—that this is an important, awful but moving story.

https://macleans.ca/culture/sugarcane-d ... ary-oscar/