Sugarcane

Synopsis

A gripping investigation of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school unearths secrets below and above ground, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants, including the film’s co-director.

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Director

Julian Brave NoiseCat a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, is a writer and filmmaker currently based in the Pacific Northwest. A fellow of the Center for Racial Justice at University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy as well as New America and the Type Media Center, he is currently writing 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. A columnist for Canada’s National Observer, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker among other publications and has been recognized with numerous 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, he was named to the TIME100 Next list of emerging leaders alongside the starting point guard of his fantasy basketball team, Luka Doncic.

Emily Kassie, Director/Producer

Emily Kassie is an Emmy and Peabody-nominated investigative journalist and filmmaker. She covers geopolitical conflict, humanitarian crises, and the stories of people caught in the crossfire for The New York Times, Netflix, PBS Frontline, and The Guardian, amongst others. Her recent directing credits include, UNDOCUMENTED IN THE PANDEMIC (PBS), ANATOMY OF HATE (Time), and THE END OF OIL EXPLAINED (Netflix). Her work has been honored with multiple Edward R. Murrow, Deadline, Overseas Press Club, World Press Photo, Peabody Future of Media, National Press Photographer, and National Magazine awards. Emily previously oversaw visual journalism at Highline, Huffington Post’s investigative magazine, and at The Marshall Project. In 2019, POYi recognized her as Multimedia Journalist of the Year, and in 2020 she was named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list. She won the Academy Award for student documentary after graduating from Brown University and was a Gates Scholar at Cambridge, where she completed her masters in International Relations.

Kellen Quinn, Producer

Kellen Quinn is an Oscar-nominated producer. His credits include Garrett Bradley's TIME (Oscar nominated; Sundance 2020 Directing Award: US Documentary Competition), Luke Lorentzen's MIDNIGHT FAMILY (shortlisted for Documentary Feature Oscar; Sundance 2019 Special Jury Award for Cinematography: US Documentary Competition), 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; POV). Kellen was selected for DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” class in 2020. He was a Sundance Documentary Producing Fellow from 2017 to 2018, and in 2016 he was among six producers selected for Impact Partners’ Documentary Producers Fellowship. With Luke Lorentzen, Kellen is a co-founder of the independent production company Hedgehog Films.