Skip to main content
Sugarcane film image; man looking contemplative

Canadians have been grappling with the true extent of the horrors of the Residential School system since the discovery of more than 200 potential unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021, a reckoning that is still in its early stages. Sugarcane is an important contribution to this story, focusing on another BC Residential School, at St. Joseph’s Mission — near the Sugarcane reserve — in Williams Lake. For those who continue to deny or to downplay the impact of a colonial system explicitly designed to eradicate Indigenous culture, this should be mandatory viewing.

With sensitivity and compassion, the film introduces us to those doing the hard labour of researching the past, to traumatized survivors who attended the school as children, and to the children of these children, carrying emotional scars they have inherited but cannot fully comprehend. Among these, co-director Julian Brave Noisecat, who journeys with his father Ed back to Williams Lake in the hope of forging the a personal reconciliation across the generational divide.

A gut-punch of a documentary.

Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

A deeply impactful work… Sugarcane deftly and profoundly provides a means by which the greater process of understanding is to be accomplished. There’s a sweetness to Sugarcane that should not be under appreciated, as beneath the tears and terrors of the past there is a story of survival that’s so seldom articulated as gracefully. We meet some truly remarkable individuals and, through them, become guests into this community and given access to moments of emotional intimacy that are extremely compelling.

Jason Gorber, POV magazine

Directors

Julian Brave Noisecat & Emily Kassie

Featuring

Julian Brave Noisecat

Credits
Country of Origin

USA/Canada

Year

2024

Language

In English and Secwepemctsín with English subtitles

Awards

Best Direction, Documentary, Sundance Film Festival

Nominated: Best Documentary Feature, Academy Awards

19+
107 min

Book Tickets

Friday February 21

5:15 pm
Hearing Assistance Subtitles
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Saturday February 22

1:30 pm
Hearing Assistance Subtitles
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Credits

Cinematography

Emily Kassie

Editor

Nathan Punwar

Original Music

Mali Obomsawin

Also Playing

Mongrels

Dir. Jerome Yoo
111 min

Like Riceboy Sleeps, Jerome Yoo's debut feature is a beguiling, introspective film looking back on the Korean immigrant experience in the Canadian hinterland, here split across three chapters, each with a distinct visual aesthetic.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Doctor Zhivago

Dir. David Lean
197 min

This Valentine Day, wrap yourself in David Lean's epic, all-star love story, set against the tumult of the Russian Revolution. With Maurice Jarre's haunting score, Omar Sharif as the soulful doctor/poet, and Julie Christie as his soul-mate Lara.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Oscar® Shorts 2025: Documentary

164 min

Four of this year's short documentary nominees are from the USA, and three of them deal with violence: a prisoner on death row, Parkland, and a police shooting incident in Chicago, 2018. Happily the other nominees focus on classical music.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Paying For It

Dir. Sook-Yin Lee
85 min

Talk about a hall of mirrors! Sook-Yin Lee wittily adapts the graphic novel of the same name by her ex-boyfriend, Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, about the end of their relationship Brown's subsequent decision to start paying for sex.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre