Latest news with #Kassie
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
Associated Press
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
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. 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.'
The Independent
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
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. 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
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Yahoo
In ‘Sugarcane', 'The Ghosts Come Home To Tell The Story' Of Indigenous Kids Abused At Indian Residential School – Contenders Film: The Nominees
The systematic abuse of Indigenous children at Indian Residential Schools barely received attention in North America despite going on for generations. That has finally changed in the past year in large part through the profound impact of Sugarcane, the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie. 'These were institutions that were actually founded in the U.S. with the idea to 'kill the Indian and save the man,' in the words of one of their original architects,' NoiseCat explained during an appearance with Kassie at Deadline's Contenders Film: The Nominees. 'For over 150 years, about six generations, native children were forcibly separated from their families and sent to these schools to be assimilated into white and Christian society. The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission has described this as a cultural genocide. It's one of the most significant, foundational chapters in North American history. And yet people have heard very little about it.' More from Deadline Oscar Nominations: 'Emilia Pérez' Leads With 13; 'The Brutalist' And 'Wicked' Score 10 Apiece In Wide-Open Race 2025 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Spirits, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More 'Memoir Of A Snail' Director Adam Elliot Breaks Ranks With Animation Norms: "They're Not For Kids" - Contenders Film: The Nominees Children attending the schools were routinely subjected to physical and sexual abuse, deprived of their language and culture. An untold number of them wound up dead – some killed while trying to escape the schools, other under circumstances that remain unclear. Evidence suggests the possible presence of human remains on the grounds of some of the institutions. RELATED: 'I've spent a career looking at human rights abuses and conflicts all over the world from Niger to Afghanistan but had never turned my lens on my own country. I'm born and raised in Canada and knew next to nothing about the residential schools, even though the last one closed in 1997. This is such a present history,' Kassie said. 'So, when the news broke of potential unmarked graves on the grounds of one of those schools, I felt gut-pulled to this story. I felt like this was the place in the world I needed to be to follow one of these searches from its onset.' Kassie directed her attention to the St. Joseph's Mission School in British Columbia, where Chief Willie Sellars of the Williams Lake First Nation had been pushing for an investigation into possible unmarked graves. She reached out to her friend NoiseCat – they had met early in their journalistic careers – about collaborating on a film, having no idea about his personal connection to St. Joseph's Mission. 'When she said that, I was completely shocked. I had to make sure that I heard her correctly because of course, that's a school that my family was sent to and where my father was born,' NoiseCat recalled. 'So, out of 139 Indian residential schools across Canada, [Emily] happened to choose to focus our documentary on the one school that my family was taken away to and where my father's life began, without even realizing that that's what she had done.' The documentary project became both an investigation into abuse at that school and a personal odyssey for NoiseCat as he tried to establish a stronger emotional bond with his father, Ed Archie NoiseCat. The legacy of shame and trauma for Indigenous people who went to the schools had harmed an enormous number of families, including NoiseCat's. 'I chose actually to move back in with my dad, a man who left when I was a small child, who I hadn't lived with since I was 6 or 7 years old,' he said. 'At the age of 28, as a first-time filmmaker and author, I decided to move into the same house as him and live across the hall. And through that experience it became very clear that he had these questions about the circumstances surrounding his birth as well as his upbringing, which themselves went back to our family's experience and his mother in particular, her experience at St. Joseph's Mission. … Here I was with my own complicated relationship to my dad that was in large part caused by that history of, again, family separation. And I was in a position to help him sort through that and in so doing to help myself sort through my own questions of my relationship to my father and my culture.' RELATED: In addition to its Oscar nomination, Sugarcane has won numerous awards around the world including Best Director for NoiseCat and Kassie at the Sundance Film Festival, Best Documentary from the National Board of Review, and both Best Political Documentary and Best True Crime Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. 'We screened at the Canadian Parliament,' BraveCat noted. 'We screened in the White House, which was incredibly, incredibly special. It was actually in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House, which is obviously symbolically significant. And we were also, in many places, accompanied by the first Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, who as the Secretary of Interior [in the Biden administration] led a formal inquiry, a federal inquiry into the Native American boarding schools.' One of the most powerful scenes in Sugarcane takes place in a disused barn where, over a period of decades, Indigenous children worked under the lash. Sometimes they escaped abuse by climbing up to an attic area. 'The kids were used as child labor … They would be taken and strapped to poles and brutally beaten until they passed out,' Kassie said. 'The top of the barn is a place where kids would go hide out … So, this was a place of both horror, forced labor and of refuge. And when you take the ladder up to those kind of [rafters] of the barn, what you find on the walls is etchings of children — dating back to 1917 — where they would mark their names, what reservation they came from, and in some cases they would count down the days until they could go home.' Kassie added, 'The barns hold a very particular power because one of the central kind of ideas behind Sugarcane is this question of what happens when the ghosts come home to tell the story. And it's here in these barns and these remaining structures of the Mission that some of those spirits still live.' Ascending to that haunted space, Kassie said, 'It felt as if the world had broken open. It felt as if the film was connecting what we were experiencing — there was a portal to something else. And we talked a lot about how Indigenous storytelling and tradition takes very seriously the notion of the spirit world. And that became an integral part to how we told the story of Sugarcane.' Check back Monday for the panel video. Best of Deadline 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery 'The Apprentice' Oscar Nominees Sebastian Stan & Jeremy Strong On Why It's 'More Of A Horror Movie' With "Monstrous Egos" 'Prime Target' Release Guide: When Are New Episodes Available On Apple TV+?
