| Sugarcane | |
| Music: | Mali Obomsawin |
| Distributor: | National Geographic Documentary Films (Worldwide) Variance Films (United States) Films We Like (Canada) |
| Runtime: | 107 minutes[1] |
| Gross: | $11,048[2] [3] |
Sugarcane is a 2024 documentary film, directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie and produced by Emily Kassie and Kellen Quinn. It follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants.
It had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024 where it won the Grand Jury award for Directing.[4] It is scheduled to be theatrically released in limited engagements in the United States and Canada on August 9, 2024, before gradually expanding to other cities starting August 16, by National Geographic Documentary Films through Variance Films in the United States and Films We Like in Canada.
Sugarcane follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants.[5] [6] The film focuses on an incident reported in the September 3rd, 1959 issue of the Cariboo Observer in which a 20-year old unmarried Indian woman abandoned her newborn infant in a garbage burner behind St Joseph's Indian Residential School near Williams Lake in British Columbia. The baby's life was saved by the school's dairyman, Antonious Stoop, who found the abandoned infant when he returned to the school late in the evening from a meeting, and rushed the infant to the Williams Lake hospital. The mother was subsequently charged, and sentenced to a year in prison.[7]
The film received grants from Catapult Film Fund and the International Documentary Association Enterprise Fund.[8] [9] [10]
It had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024.[11] It also played at the 2024 San Francisco International Film Festival, 2024 Seattle International Film Festival,[12] the 2024 Sheffield International Documentary Festival,[13] the 2024 Sydney Film Festival,[14] the 2024 DOXA Documentary Film Festival,[15] the 2024 Nantucket Film Festival,[16] the 2024 Boston Independent Film Festival,[17] the 2024 Sarasota Film Festival,[18] the 2024 Maryland Film Festival,[19] the 2024 Cleveland International Film Festival,[20] and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.[21]
In February 2024, National Geographic Documentary Films acquired distribution rights to the film.[22] It was later announced that the film would be screened in exclusive engagements at the Film Forum in Manhattan and TIFF Lightbox in Toronto starting August 9, 2024, followed by the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles starting August 16; an expansion to other cities in the United States and Canada will gradually take place starting August 16. Variance Films and Films We Like serve as co-distributors in the United States and Canada respectively.[23] [24]
It won the "Documentary award" [25] from the 2024 San Francisco International Film Festival, the "Official Competition Special Jury Prize"[26] from the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival, the "Special Jury Prize Documentary Feature" [27] from the 2024 Sarasota Film Festival.