Co-directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie won the jury prize for directing in the U.S. documentary category for their debut feature as collaborators. A well-deserved award, NoiseCat and Kassie delicately weave together a multigenerational story about the long-lasting effects of Indian boarding schools on Native peoples. “Sugarcane” takes place largely on a reserve in Canada as an investigation unfolds looking for buried missing children at the shuttered Saint Joseph’s Mission School. 

Julian and his family bravely reveal their experiences at the school alongside several other victims. From suicide, to alcoholism, and difficulty with familial closeness, none of the children from these schools walked away the same as when they went in. Through the act of revisiting the school grounds, participating in ceremony, a visit to the Vatican and honest conversations, the subjects of the film work towards a place of healing for themselves and generations to come. 

You can watch “Sugarcane” online through the Sundance 2024 platform.

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I wanted to get started with talking about your collaboration as co-directors. Emily, I know you’re an investigative journalist, and Julian, you’re an activist and writer. I was wondering if you could talk about how that kind of co-directing relationship worked, what strengths each of you brought and how that all worked for you.

Emily Kassie (EK): Jules and I worked our first reporting jobs together almost a decade ago. We were both reporters in the newsroom at the Huffington Post. And since then we became fast friends. We were seated at the desks next to each other, and we’ve been trying to work together since. Julian has had an incredible career, a multifaceted one. He’s an incredible writer. He was named to Time’s Next 100 Leaders List, and he’s just an amazing storyteller. 

My focus has been visual journalism and documentary storytelling. I’m Canadian, so when the news of unmarked graves hit, it felt like this was a story that as a Canadian, I felt really was important to tell. My focus in my work has been on human rights abuses and conflicts around the world from Afghanistan and Syria and Turkey, and I’d never done anything on Canada. So I reached out to Julian as soon as I heard about the potential unmarked graves and asked about collaborating on a project together. 

Julian Brave NoiseCat (JBN): When Emily called, I was already committed to writing a book, which I frankly didn’t know how to do yet at the time, and adding another thing that I didn’t know how to do – make a movie – felt a little bit irresponsible.

I told her I had to think about it. The part that I didn’t tell her was my family’s connection to the residential schools, as you may now know, was a very heavy and painful one. I knew there was a story there, although I wasn’t sure what that story was, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go there on this subject and on that story.

I took a little time to talk to my family, to my agent, and other people whose advice and guidance I wanted. And after a couple of weeks, I got back to Emily and I said I’d potentially be open to collaborating. 

EK: When Jules told me that by that point I had already reached out to a nation that same day. I found an article about the Williams Lake First Nation and I emailed the chief, Chief Billy Sellers, and he called me that same day and said, “the creator has always had incredible timing for me. Just yesterday our counsel said, we need someone to come document this, and we’d love to invite you here to do that.”

So I had the pleasure of getting to meet with counsel and being invited by them to help them tell this story and document what they were doing. So when I called Julian, I said, “hey, Jules, I’m glad you’re open to collaborating. I’m going to be following a search at Saint Joseph’s Mission.”

JBN: When Emily said that, I paused and I said, “wow, that’s really crazy. Did you know that’s the school where my family was sent and where my father was born?” I was blown away. 

EK: It felt like we were fated to come together to do this. It’s been an incredible collaboration. Jules and I have spent so many days in the field together following our protagonists and living this story alongside them. Obviously, Julian is also in the film, but part of our process together was we’d spend these days shooting and then we’d come home at night and we ate some snacks and we’d talk about everything we had seen that day. We’d talk about Native cinema, and Jules would give me an education on culture and Native art, history, oral tradition and storytelling.

We would just kind of have these wild brainstorms and come up with ideas of what we wanted to say. We created a shared vision together that we were able to see through. 

Julian, obviously this is a very personal story, and as much as you’re speaking to the bigger picture, this story makes you really vulnerable and your family really vulnerable. Can you talk about what that process was like, getting permission from your family and just kind of going through that together in front of cameras? 

JBN: So I think that there’s sort of two parts to this that are worth talking about. The first is that obviously to feel comfortable and confident telling a story like this, you know, you need a team around you who you trust to tell this story when you step out from behind the camera in front of it and you switch from the role of director to one of a participant. Throughout the entire process Emily, our director of photography, our producer and so many others, you know, gave me the time. First of all, in the space to do what I needed to do to get to step into that role as a participant. They also gave me the utmost confidence that when I chose to do that, they would handle that story not just with care, but would also give it the best treatment that they could as cinematographers, as editors, as artists, as filmmakers.

And, you know, that ultimately was a huge part of me feeling comfortable sharing such a personal and vulnerable story. The other side of it is that two of our participants, Charlene Belleau and the late Chief Rick Gilbert, were really, really key to my feeling like participating was part of giving my own all to this.So both of those moments actually are in the film, although I’m only in one of them. 

The first is the moment when Charlene brought us to the barns that day. Charlene told Emily to bring me to the barn and to bring her camera, and that’s all she said. And then she performed the ceremony, which she wanted Emily to film, of her sort of telling me that it was now part of my responsibility to help share and tell the story of our missing children and to help bring them home. In that moment was a moment where I was, you know, first really pulled into this story. 

The second moment was the moment when the late Chief Rick Gilbert had the confrontation with the priest in Rome. As a director, I was sitting in the other room listening in to that conversation. As Rick shared some of his most vulnerable and painful parts of his own identity and literal genealogy, I was just thinking to myself, wow, this is the most courageous thing I have ever witnessed anybody do. And if this guy, who is not an author of this work, who has no creative control of how this story is told, is willing to trust us with this story, and I have my own story and my own family’s story, how am I going to be really giving my all to this essential history and present narrative of our people if I’m not willing to go there with my own stuff? 

I really appreciated the ending when you’re talking to your grandma and it’s just the audio. Because as much as people can feel comfortable sharing their stories, I feel like sometimes having a camera in your face can be too much. I felt like it was really kind to her, I guess just to not, like, reveal all the vulnerabilities of someone going through that emotionally.

I know that making this whole film and even having to talk about it right now, like on a press tour, is has got to be difficult. And I’m wondering how you guys have been taking care of yourselves? And is that something that you think about, like taking care of yourselves and each other during this process?

JBN: Yeah, there were a lot of parts of living this story that obviously were not in the documentary, but that were essential to telling this story. So one of the other things that Charlene did for us, and this was for both me and Emily, was that she made sure that we were participating in ceremony during the making of the film. There were a number of sweats that Emily and I were both invited to. I would go to the men’s and Emily would go with Charlene. And then there’s also a ceremonial commitment that I took on to fast for four days and four nights for four years, usually in June, as part of my sort of spiritual preparation for the making of this film.

And while we made this film, I also have certain ceremonial items and things in my possession and care that I’m entrusted to take care of for my family and community. And those responsibilities are, in my view, really core, not just to the creative and filmmaking process, but also just core to my life now.

I will also add that Charlene and the community has been incredibly open and inviting to Emily and other members of our film team. The first year that I did my fasting commitment, Emily was invited to participate in a fast for a day. So she went and fasted – no food, no water for a day and a night while I was doing the four day, four night thing.

So all of those sorts of things and all the normal like eating healthy, sleeping, taking naps, all that sort of stuff has been really, really essential to how we take care of ourselves. 

EK: And at this point, Jules and I are like siblings. We have just been so, so much up in Jules’ life and with the camera. His familial relations have just been present for so much of it. And we felt so much trust and love between all of us. And we just are all there for each other.

There have been a lot of hard moments where we’ve witnessed really traumatic things and we’ve just had to keep talking about them, keep working through them. Obviously, we all have our own families, individual things we do for ourselves spiritually and for our mental health. I think the bond of our team and that all of our hearts are fully in this because we believe that this story is so important.

We believe Julian’s voice is so important and the other protagonists in the film. We really believe in this work of art to change the way people think about things. So because of that, we are able to find solace in each other. And I think there’s one other thing which is that, you know, amidst great pain and trauma and horror there is also a lot of love and resilience.

And watching Julian be courageous enough to tell this story, watching Rick be courageous enough to tell his truth, watching Charlene continue to fight for this, even at the age of 70 and just continue to forge this path and trailblaze is inspiring. This land is beautiful and this way of life is beautiful. And so there’s a lot of that that inspires us.And we also had a lot of fun making it together. 

Emily I’m wondering if you could speak to the importance of sharing this film as a documentary versus more traditional methods of journalism? 

EK: You know, you’re focused on fact finding, your focus on providing information and, you know, making sure people have balance and context. And I think what Jules and I really wanted to do was not just get to an important journalistic truth, which this does tackle, but to an emotional truth. And making a documentary feature has allowed us the space, and allowed me the space, to work as an artist and to be closer to the people that I’m following. To express my ideas in a more poetic and lyrical way, to speak to something spiritual at play, something greater than the literal, you know, the literal plotline that’s playing out on the ground.

And so I, I think that part of that is, is in conversation with the community itself and how people live and what’s important to them. And also in conversation with Native art and cinema. I think the chance for this to be a piece of art and for people to connect to these universal themes about fatherhood, parentage and about identity and family, and what’s broken and what can be repaired, gets at something so much greater than just the hard, horrific facts of history.

This is a foundational history that everyone should know and it’s horrific. And the church and the government should be held accountable for these crimes. But we can also look inside ourselves and feel and see the way that these protagonists rise to the occasion and hopefully take that home in our own lives.

Could you talk about the ways you have grown from this experience?

JBN: You know, I think that I have really just loved the opportunity to collaborate. My background in craft is primarily as a writer, which is a largely solitary form of storytelling.You go out and you report and you interact with people. Obviously, you’re in the field, but then you spend extended periods of time with your computer and your notes and your research. I think the opportunity to be in the field with other people and then to edit with other people and to learn from each other and to have ideas and to build ideas off of one another has just been one of the most fulfilling creative experiences of my life. 

It’s just incredibly rewarding. And to share that with people who are so talented, has just been, honestly, the gift of a lifetime as a storyteller. And I’ve learned so much from everybody. So I’m just so, so grateful for that part of this experience.

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