Film Forum is pleased to present the US theatrical premiere of Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s SUGARCANE, opening on Friday, August 9.

In 2021, unmarked graves were discovered around Canadian church-run boarding schools, belatedly exposing the hundred-year efforts to strip First Nations children of their culture and identity: Indigenous languages were banned, children were separated from their families and abused, and some disappeared. SUGARCANE begins with a First Nation investigation at St. Joseph’s Mission school near the Sugarcane Reservation in British Columbia. 

With tremendous empathy, co-directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie (winners of the Sundance Directing award) document the lucid, intimate memories of survivors of the school — including a leading advocate/investigator; a former tribal chief who is still a practicing Catholic; and NoiseCat’s own father and grandmother, whose tragic story went unspoken for years.