Sugarcane

Documentary

May 11

Sugarcane

An investigation of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants, including the film’s co-director whose father was born—and nearly buried—at the school.

Year: 2024

Project Type: Documentary

Evoke’s Role: Sugarcane is a grantee and program-related investment of Evoke Media. Evoke Media founder Sabrina Merage Naim is an Executive Producer.

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Meet the filmmakers

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.
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.
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.
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.
Editor
Nathan Punwar is a documentary film editor whose recent credits include two feature films with director Nadia Hallgren - Becoming (2020, Netflix), based on Michelle Obama’s memoir of the same title, and Civil (2022, Netflix), following civil rights attorney Ben Crump. Other notable recent work includes editing for the docu-series The New York Times Presents (Hulu), and additional editing on Frank Oz’s film adaptation of Derek Delgaudio’s In And Of Itself (Hulu). His short-form and episodic editing work has appeared on PBS, The New Yorker, Topic, and Field of Vision. His first feature documentary film as editor was an archival documentary for The Rolling Stones - Charlie Is My Darling, Ireland 1965 (New York Film Festival 2012 Selection).
Editor
Maya Daisy Hawke makes, edits and performs cinema. Editing credits include double 2022 Sundance Film Festival Audience award winner Navalny (CNN films) and Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2015) and Freedom Fields (2017). She is currently lead editor on an unannounced Netflix series. Her own projects include Currency of Despair (2014), Box of Birds (2016) and Unfated Yet, presented live at Museum of the Moving Image NYC (2020) and Stupeur Narcissique, LACMA (2020). She is co-director (with Joe Bini) of Little Ethiopia, a live documentary, performed at the Sundance Film Festival, Museum of the Moving Image NYC’s First Look (2019), in London at ICA Frames of Representation (2018) and online at IDFA (2020). She premiered a new live cinema piece, Capture Mode, at First Look at Museum of the Moving Image NYC 2021.
Composer
Mali Obomsawin is a bassist, singer and composer from Odanak First Nation, and one of GRAMMY.com’s top ten emerging jazz artists to watch this year. Her debut album “Sweet Tooth” (Out of Your Head Records, 2022) garnered international acclaim and was named in ‘best of the year’ lists from The Guardian, NPR, and JazzTimes upon its release. Evocative and thunderous, “Sweet Tooth” delivers a gripping and dynamic performance, seamlessly melding chorale-like spirituals, folk melodies, and post-Albert Ayler free jazz. Obomsawin’s ensemble occupies a musical universe completely their own, bringing skronk and reverence to every stage.

reaching audiences all over the world

Sugarcane premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Acquired by National Geographic Documentary Films, the documentary is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.