Dartmouth Events

An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning in this stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people. 

Winning the award at Sundance for Best Directing in a US documentary, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie offer an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. 

In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves was discovered on the grounds of an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada. After years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation and abuse many children experienced at these segregated boarding schools was brought to light, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities. With a beautiful and haunting score by Mali Obomsawin '18, Sugarcane illuminates the beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to persevere.

The directors say of their experience: "Throughout, we were drawn to the contradictions we saw in the lives of our subjects: of faith, of culture, of the beauty and weight of home and family, when those things have been so fundamentally broken, and of the pursuit of truth, which can both liberate and kill. But we also connected to the parts of this experience that transcended: of the humanity that called our subjects to a greater, lasting purpose at the moment it mattered most; of the connection between departed ancestors and loved ones and the people they left behind; and of the forces that, for some reason, brought us together to tell this story."

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