''Sugarcane'' is a 2024 documentary film, directed by

Julian Brave NoiseCat Julian Brave NoiseCat is an American writer, filmmaker, and activist who is an enrolled member of the Canim Lake Band, Canim Lake Band Tsq'secen of the Secwépemc, Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation in the Canadian province of British Columbia. He is a pu ...

and

Emily Kassie Emily Kassie is a filmmaker, investigative journalist, and cinematographer. Her debut feature documentary ''Sugarcane'' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024 where it won the Grand Jury Directing Award. Career In 2016, Kassie won th ...

and produced by Emily Kassie and Kellen Quinn. It follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants. It had its world premiere at the

2024 Sundance Film Festival The 2024 Sundance Film Festival will take place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023. Official Sections U.S. Dramatic Competition World Cinema Dramatic Competition U.S. ...

on January 20, 2024 where it won the Grand Jury award for Directing. It is scheduled to be theatrically released in limited engagements in the United States and Canada on August 9, 2024, before gradually expanding to other cities starting August 16, by

National Geographic Documentary Films National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney General E ...

through

Variance Films Variance Films is a privately held film distribution company founded in 2008 that uses an innovative model of self-distribution combined with select elements of traditional theatrical distribution to allow filmmakers to achieve quality theatrical ...

in the United States and Films We Like in Canada.

Premise

''Sugarcane'' follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants. The film focuses on an incident reported in the September 3rd, 1959 issue of the ''Cariboo Observer'' in which a 20-year old unmarried Indian woman abandoned her newborn infant in a garbage burner behind St Joseph's Indian Residential School near Williams Lake in British Columbia. The baby's life was saved by the school's dairyman, Antonious Stoop, who found the abandoned infant when he returned to the school late in the evening from a meeting, and rushed the infant to the Williams Lake hospital. The mother was subsequently charged, and sentenced to a year in prison.

Production

The film received grants from Catapult Film Fund and the

International Documentary Association International Documentary Association (IDA), founded in 1982, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre. Their major program areas are: Advocacy, Filmm ...

Enterprise Fund.

Release

It had its world premiere at the

on January 20, 2024. It also played at the 2024 San Francisco International Film Festival, 2024 Seattle International Film Festival, the 2024

Sheffield International Documentary Festival Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The Festival includes film sc ...

, the 2024 Sydney Film Festival, the 2024

DOXA Documentary Film Festival The DOXA Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festival based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is held annually held for 10 days in May, and is presented by The Documentary Media Society, a non-profit organization. The festiva ...

, the 2024

Nantucket Film Festival The Nantucket Film Festival is a film festival founded in 1996 which focuses on screenwriting. Board members include Donick Cary, Nancy Dubac, Chris Matthews, Kathleen Matthews, Ben Stiller, and Tom Scott. History The Nantucket Film Festival ...

, the 2024 Boston Independent Film Festival, the 2024 Sarasota Film Festival, the 2024 Maryland Film Festival, the 2024 Cleveland International Film Festival, and the

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema. The festival is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) at Duke University. ...

. In February 2024,

acquired distribution rights to the film. It was later announced that the film would be screened in exclusive engagements at the Film Forum in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

and TIFF Lightbox in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

starting August 9, 2024, followed by the Laemmle Royal in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

starting August 16; an expansion to other cities in the United States and Canada will gradually take place starting August 16.

and Films We Like serve as co-distributors in the United States and Canada respectively.

Awards and Accolades

It won the "Documentary award" from the 2024 San Francisco International Film Festival , the "Official Competition Special Jury Prize" from the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival, the "Special Jury Prize Documentary Feature" from the 2024 Sarasota Film Festival.

References

External links

* {{IMDB title, 30319854 2024 documentary films American documentary films Canadian documentary films 2020s American films 2020s Canadian films Documentary films about First Nations