EXCLUSIVE: The Oscar-contending documentary Sugarcane has received the rare honor of a White House screening, with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other dignitaries in attendance.
Directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie were accompanied by several of the film’s participants at the event on Tuesday evening (it took place at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House but is considered an official White House screening). The film investigates the abuse and disappearance of Indigenous children who attended a so-called Indian Residential School in British Columbia, part of network of such schools in Canada and the U.S. that operated for over a century.
On October 25, President Biden traveled to the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona to offer a historic apology for the federal government’s role in supporting the boarding schools that were designed to deprive Indigenous children of their languages, customs, and identity. After Tuesday night’s screening, the filmmaking team received a letter from Pres. Biden in which he reiterated his condemnation of the boarding school system.
“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,” the president 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 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.”
A trio of Sugarcane’s executive producers — Jenny Raskin, David Fialkow, and Nina Fialkow – attended the event, joining Courteney Monroe, president of National Geographic Global Television Networks, and Jessica Moore, VP government relations for the Walt Disney Company. Also on hand were film participants Chief Willie Sellars of the Williams Lake First Nation, Chris Wycotte, and Anna Gilbert. Representing the administration were Rose Petoskey, Director of Tribal Affairs, and Secretary Haaland — the first Native American person ever to serve as a cabinet secretary.
The evening was capped by an impromptu drum circle performed by Chief Sellars and NoiseCat.
The White House screening is the latest in a succession of honors for Sugarcane. It recently won Best Documentary from the National Board of Review and is nominated for a leading six nominations at the upcoming Cinema Eye Honors. NoiseCat and Kassie are nominated for the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which will be held on February 22. They won the directing award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, where Sugarcane premiered.
The film explores intergenerational trauma inflicted by the boarding school system.
“The [Indian Residential] schools operated for over 150 years across the North American continent. And it’s important for people to know that the last school closed in 1997,” Kassie told Deadline at the Sundance. “This is a recent history, this is a recent horror, and its consequences and ramifications are very present. The death toll is still ticking higher as people continue to die from the brutal abuse and cycles of abuse that continue in the legacies of residential schools and Indian boarding schools in America.”
BraveCat’s grandmother attended the St. Joseph’s Mission boarding school in British Columbia. She gave birth to a son there – Julian’s father, Ed Archie NoiseCat. Ed, as the film reveals, was miraculously spared from the incinerator; an unknown number of babies born to girls attending the school did not escape that grim fate – discarded with the knowledge or at the direction of Catholic clergy who ran the school.
“I think that our film tries to center a story about community and family, about the ties that bring us together and that endure despite the awful history of these schools and of this genocide,” BraveCat told us at Sundance. “So yes, it is a really awful history. I think that it’s a challenging film because of that, and it needed to be because this was a genocide. And at the same time, I think Emily and our cinematographers and our whole team, our editors, really tried to draw out and to make a point of is that despite that history, a very beautiful Indigenous way of life and connection to each other and to our land persists against that near annihilation.”
English (US) ·