Latest news with #NoiseCat
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:
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+?
