Latest news with #JulianBraveNoiseCat
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ICT NEWSCAST: Turmoil at Haskell, Spirit Lake celebrates and Native excellence in film
The ICT Newscast for Friday, March 21, 2025 features updates on the impact of Trump-era layoffs on Haskell Indian Nations University. Plus, the return of treaty land in North Dakota, a new Canadian prime minister making headlines, and Native voices gaining ground in film, food, and education. Check out the ICT Newscast on YouTube for this episode and more. Turmoil at Haskell Indian Nations University: Trump administration layoffs and their impact. Land Return to Spirit Lake Nation: Celebration of treaty land being returned after 120 years. Canadian Political Developments: New Prime Minister amidst tariff war and annexation threats. Oscar Nomination for Native Filmmaker: Julian Brave NoiseCat's "Sugarcane" documentary. Tribal Culture Sharing in Montana: Indigenous students at the University of Montana sharing culture. Food Sovereignty in Alabama: An Alabama tribe's efforts to support food sovereignty. Native Restaurant in Portland, Oregon: A famous native pop-up restaurant opens a brick-and-mortar location. View previous ICT broadcasts here every week for the latest news from around Indian Country. ICT is owned by IndiJ Public Media, a nonprofit news organization. Will you support our work? All of our content is free. There are no subscriptions or costs. And we have hired more Native journalists in the past year than any news organization ─ and with your help we will continue to grow and create career paths for our people. Support ICT for as little as $10. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Sugarcane' at the Academy Awards
Sandra Hale SchulmanICT It was a long bittersweet road for 'Sugarcane,' the film nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2025 Oscars. While the acclaimed film did not win the Oscar Sunday night, March 2, at the Academy Awards, director Julian Brave NoiseCat won as the first North American Indigenous filmmaker to be nominated in the category. SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. "No matter what happens at the Oscars this weekend, I am incredibly proud of our film, our team, our participants, our families, our communities, our people and especially our survivors,' NoiseCat said in a social media post. 'Helping tell this story has been a profound and life-changing experience. Kukwstsétselp (thank you) to everyone who has watched and supported." he said. The heart-wrenching film investigates the Catholic-run state schools enforced upon Indigenous children in Canada, particularly the one in Kamloops, Canada, where his father, Archie Ed NoiseCat was almost incinerated as a newborn, apparently the only baby to escape that fate. Despite the heavy subject matter, the film team was exuberant on the red carpet. Julian Brave NoiseCat wore beaded earrings, a black shirt with a floral embroidered suede vest, a gorget neckpiece featuring a deer head and turquoise. Archie NoiseCat wore a classic tuxedo with a black-brimmed hat and mirrored sunglasses. 'So incredibly grateful to my nations, my friends and especially my family — by blood and in film — for this Academy Award nomination (What a crazy thing to even get to write!),' the younger NoiseCat said in the Instagram post. 'The stories of the First Peoples of this land deserve to be known and recognized. To all who came before and have been working and praying for this for so long, thank you. It is an honor to learn from you and follow in your footsteps, as that is our way. Xwexweyt te kwseltkten, all my relations.' He continued, 'The news of the grim discovery in Kamloops hit close to home for me. All my adult life, I'd heard rumors that my father was born at or near one of those residential schools and that he'd been found, just minutes after his birth, abandoned in a dumpster,' he said. 'Those few details were all he or I knew. The silence, shame and guilt that hid this history from broader society rippled across generations of Indigenous families like my own. Our communities continue to suffer from cycles of suicide, addiction and violence, instigated by the experience at these schools.' In an opinion piece for The New York Times Julian Brave NoiseCat wrote, 'It's an honor to be the first Indigenous filmmaker from North America to be nominated for an Academy Award. But I better not be the only one for long. Some might see this nomination as historic and proof that Hollywood has come a long way from the time when studios portrayed Indians dying at the hands of swaggering cowboys. That era of western movies coincided with the heyday of the residential schools, which were designed to kill off Indigenous cultures and which led, in some cases, to the death of children themselves.'The film earned many prestigious accolades — including a 90/100 on Metacritic and a 100 percent positivity score on Rotten Tomatoes, signifying universal acclaim. It has also been praised by renowned voices like former President Barack Obama who listed it as a top film from last year. Even former President Joe Biden acknowledged its impact. "Sugarcane shines light on this shameful chapter of history, helping ensure that it is never forgotten or repeated," Biden said. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Documentary for Directing award. There was an emotional screening in Santa Fe last summer attended by Julian and Archie, with a Q&A hosted by 'Dark Winds' director Chris Eyre that left the mostly Native audience weeping. The documentary had the rare honor of a White House screening, with then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, director NoiseCat and other dignitaries in attendance in December. On Oct. 25, Biden traveled to the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona offering a historic apology for the federal government's role in the boarding schools that abused Indigenous children. After the screening, the filmmaking team received a letter from Biden in which he reiterated his condemnation. 'I have always believed that we must know the good, the bad, and the truth of our past so that we can begin to remember and heal,' he wrote. 'That is why I became the first President to issue a formal apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era — one of our Nation's most horrific periods. 'For over 150 years, the Federal Government ran boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native children from their homes to live at schools that were often far away,' the letter stated. 'The schools aimed to assimilate Native children by stripping them of their languages, religions, and cultures, often separating them from their families for years, with some never returning home. Native children endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and at least 973 children died in these schools.' The president continued, 'The 'Sugarcane' documentary shines a light on this shameful chapter of history, helping ensure that it is never forgotten or repeated… I know the story of 'Sugarcane' wasn't easy to tell, but we do ourselves no favors by pretending it didn't happen.' 'Sugarcane' is now streaming on Hulu. Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. 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Voice of America
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Voice of America
Native American news roundup Feb. 23 – March 1, 2025
Julian Brave NoiseCat up for an Oscar at Sunday's Academy Awards Secwepemc citizens of the Williams Lake First Nation in British Columbia will gather at Academy Award watch parties Sunday as Julian Brave NoiseCat vies for an Oscar for the documentary 'Sugarcane.' NoiseCat, a citizen of the Secwepemc Nation's Canim Lake Band, co-directed the film alongside American journalist and filmmaker Emily Kassie. The documentary investigates unmarked graves at St. Joseph's Mission School, exposing harrowing evidence of systematic rape, torture and infanticide. Through conversations with survivors, 'Sugarcane' highlights the lasting impact of the residential school system. "We stood alongside our participants as they dug graves for their friends, searched for painful truths in the recesses of their memories, and mustered the courage to confront representatives of the Church," the directors said in a statement. "You can feel their hesitation … as they struggle to confront their deepest secrets and give voice to their shame." For NoiseCat, the story is deeply personal. His father, Ed Archie NoiseCat, was born at St. Joseph's and abandoned as an infant atop the school's incinerator. In one of the film's most haunting moments, a former student recounts watching, from a hiding place, as a crying baby was tossed into the flames. Ed Archie NoiseCat is believed to be the only child fathered by a Catholic priest at the school who survived. This nomination marks the first time an Indigenous North American filmmaker has been recognized in this category by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Read about the full FLFN investigation here: ProPublica update on NAGPRA compliance shows progress, but much work remains Museums, universities and other agencies across the United States returned to tribes the remains of more than 10,300 Native American ancestors in 2024, the investigative nonprofit ProPublica reported this week as part of its ongoing investigation into compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Passed in 1990, the law requires all federal and federally funded institutions to inventory, report and repatriate all Native American human remains and culturally or spiritually significant artifacts. NAGPRA previously allowed institutions to retain artifacts whose tribal affiliation they could not determine. Rules updated in 2024 removed that provision and gave tribal historians and religious leaders a greater voice in determining where those items should go. ProPublica reports that 60% of indigenous ancestral remains subject to NAGPRA have so far been repatriated, but at least 90,000 remain in nationwide collections. Read more: Native Americans Severely Underrepresented in Medical School Admissions STAT News highlights a 22% drop in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) medical school enrollment last year: Out of 21,000 acceptances nationwide, only 201 were indigenous. Medical education leaders Dr. Donald Warne and Dr. Mary Owen express concern that indigenous physicians have remained less than 1% of all U.S. doctors for decades. At this rate, it would take more than a century for the number of Native American physicians to reach parity with their percentage of the overall population. STAT reporting partly blames inflation, which has driven up medical school costs. The COVID pandemic had a disproportionate impact on Native communities, where limited broadband access meant many students were unable to study remotely. Compounding matters is the 2023 Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action in college enrollment. Leaders in Native American medical education emphasize that AI/AN is primarily a political classification for enrolled members of federally recognized tribes protected by treaty rights, so that they should not have been affected by the ruling against race-based admissions policies. Read more: Oklahoma tribe fights for control of former boarding school site in Kansas The Shawnee Tribe wants ownership of the site of a former Native American boarding school, with Shawnee Chief Ben Barnes telling Kansas lawmakers that it was 'built on Shawnee lands by Shawnee hands and using Shawnee funds.' The Kansas Historical Society, the city of Fairway, and the local nonprofit that now runs the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School all oppose the transfer, citing concerns over historical preservation. The school opened in 1839 and included children from 22 tribes, mostly Shawnee and Delaware. Records show that at least five children died there in the 1850s. The school closed in 1862 and was later used as barracks for Union soldiers and as a stop on the Oregon, California and Santa Fe trails. Read more:
Washington Post
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Oscar-nominated documentary exposes horrifying truths about Indigenous residential schools in Canada
The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school in Canada in 2021 was just the catalyst for 'Sugarcane.' Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, the filmmakers behind the Oscar-nominated documentary, spent years investigating the truth behind just one of the institutions. 'Sugarcane,' now streaming on Hulu , paints a horrifying picture of the systemic abuses inflicted by the state-funded school and exposes for the first time a pattern of infanticide and babies born to Indigenous girls and fathered by priests.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oscar-nominated documentary exposes horrifying truths about Indian residential schools
The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school in Canada in 2021 was just the catalyst for 'Sugarcane.' Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, the filmmakers behind the Oscar-nominated documentary, spent years investigating the truth behind just one of the institutions. 'Sugarcane,' now streaming on Hulu, paints a horrifying picture of the systemic abuses inflicted by the state-funded school and exposes for the first time a pattern of infanticide and babies born to Indigenous girls and fathered by priests. In the year since it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, 'Sugarcane' has screened at the White House, for Canadian Parliament and for over a dozen indigenous communities in North America, sparking a grassroots movement and reckoning to find the truth about the other schools. It also marks the first time that an Indigenous North American filmmaker has received an Oscar nomination. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their native languages. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died. Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations Canada's residential schools were based on similar facilities in the United States, where Catholic and Protestant denominations operated more than 150 boarding schools between the 19th and 20th centuries, according to researchers, that also were home to rampant abuse. 'It's too often that we look everywhere else in the world to horrors and abuses happening, and that's important, but Native issues are rarely the issue of the day, and we believe that they deserve to be,' Kassie said. 'This story is the genocide that happened across North America, and we've never grappled with it. Native people have rarely been the focal point of that kind of countrywide dialogue. We hope that 'Sugarcane' helps to change that.' The unexpectedly personal journey to 'Sugarcane' As an investigative journalist and documentarian, Kassie had spent a decade making films about human rights abuses all over the world, from Afghanistan to Niger, but she'd never turned her lens to her own country. When the news broke about the unmarked graves, she felt drawn to the story and reached out to NoiseCat to see if he'd want to help. They became friends as cub reporters in New York who just happened to share neighboring desks. 'In the years since, Julian had gone on to become an incredible writer and thinker and journalist focusing on indigenous life in North America. It felt like the natural fit,' she said. While he was mulling it over, she went looking for a group to focus on and landed on St. Joseph's Mission near the Sugarcane Reservation of Williams Lake in British Columbia. Unbeknownst to her, that was the school NoiseCat's family attended. He'd heard stories about his father being born nearby and found in a dumpster. Over the course of making the film they'd discover that he was actually born in a dormitory and found in the school's incinerator. 'It was a process for me to ultimately decide to tell the story in a personal and familial way,' said NoiseCat, who during the making of the film lived with his father for the first time since he was around 6 years old. 'It became very clear that he had these unaddressed questions from his birth and upbringing, and that I was in a position to help him ask those questions and in so doing, to address some of my own enduring pains and complications from his abandonment of me,' NoiseCat said. 'The big thing, though, was going to the Vatican with the late Chief Rick Gilbert and witnessing his incredible bravery.' The impact of 'Sugarcane' 'We've just been incredibly fortunate that this film has had real impact,' NoiseCat said. 'I was really scared that telling such a personal and sometimes painful story might be a harmful thing. But really, thankfully, it's been a healing thing, not just for my family and our participants, but for Indian Country more broadly.' Over the last year as the film has played at various festivals and for Indigenous communities on reservations, Kassie said that more survivors have been coming forward with their stories. In October, former President Joe Biden also formally apologized to Native Americans for the 'sin' of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated children from their parents, calling it a 'blot on American history." 'This is the origin story of North America,' Kassie said. 'It's the story of how the land was taken by separating six generations of kids, indigenous kids from their families... (and) most people don't know.' Kassie noted that while 'Sugarcane' is inspiring conversations within communities, it comes at a political moment where governments are not actively supporting continued investigation and accountability. An historic Oscar nomination In a film industry with deep roots in the Western genre and problematic, racist depictions of Native Americans as impediments to westward expansion, authentic representation of indigenous stories on screen is still in the early days. In 97 years of the Oscars, no Native American person has ever won a competitive acting prize. Lily Gladstone, who is an executive producer on 'Sugarcane,' was passed over last year for best actress. When the Oscar nomination came through for 'Sugarcane,' they made sure they had their facts right before touting its own historic nature: NoiseCat was indeed the first indigenous North American filmmaker to get one. 'It's really special,' he said. 'And at the same time, it's kind of shocking.' 'We hope the film shows that there's still so much about this foundational story in North America that needs to be known and therefore needs to be investigated,' NoiseCat said. 'This film should be seen not as an ending, but a beginning to a real grappling with this story.' He added: "More broadly, there are so many painful, important, beautiful and sometimes even triumphant stories that come from Native people that come from Indian Country. It's my hope that more Native stories and storytellers and films get recognized moving forward and get made.' If 'Sugarcane' is named the winner at the Oscars on March 2, NoiseCat promised it will be an acceptance speech to watch. 'We will make it a moment,' NoiseCat said. 'If we win, I'm going to get up there, I'm going to say something, and we're going to do it well too.' ___ For more on this year's Oscar race and show, including how to watch the nominees, visit
