Watch Sugarcane. It’s Important.

Tokata Iron Eyes
Posted Sept. 12, 2024

This weekend, I had the opportunity to experience an incredible work of art. Because you’re with us in the ongoing effort to find healing for our people, I feel it’s important to share it with you, too. “Sugarcane” — an award-winning new documentary feature about the generational trauma Indigenous families and communities face as a result of the residential and boarding school era — is currently touring Indian Country and in limited theatrical release across Turtle Island. Acquired for distribution by National Geographic, it will soon stream on Disney+ and Hulu. Today, I urge you to watch the trailer, then make plans to see the full movie as soon as it’s available to you!

By now, you’re no doubt all-too familiar with the horrors wrought at Indian residential and boarding schools — and the generational trauma that, as a result, affects virtually every person who grows up Indigenous in North America. Indeed, if you are Indigenous and didn’t go through it yourself, you 100% have relatives who experienced the forced assimilation, dehumanization, and cultural genocide of these institutions firsthand. If you’re non-Indigenous, you’ve probably read about it in more detail previously from us, in the news, or both.

“Sugarcane,” co-directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat (a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie) and Emily Kassie, takes on this dynamic in a personal way. Its uncompromising lens includes NoiseCat’s exploration of his relationship with his father, who was born at a Canadian residential school. If the implications of that are not immediately obvious, I caution you to prepare yourself for some heavy material.

The New York Times called “Sugarcane” a “must-see film about a difficult subject.” I couldn’t agree more. Nonetheless, this is not a movie that overtly seeks to polemicize. It brings you in, sharing with the viewer an investigation, a personal quest, a struggle to understand and forgive what can be forgiven and expose what cannot.

I want to acknowledge in this space my real respect for NoiseCat, who in addition to directing this film and sharing his deeply personal story, is a decorated journalist. He also led the call — which Lakota Law, and by extension, supporters like you — joined to position Deb Haaland as the U.S.’s first Indigenous Cabinet secretary. That’s a strong example of what we can accomplish together when we watch and follow with action.

So I hope you will watch what NoiseCat, Kassie, and their team have created with “Sugarcane.” It’s beautiful. It’s tough. It’s important.

Wopila tanka — thank you for supporting Indigenous creators!

Tokata Iron Eyes is a Spokesperson and Organizer with the Lakota People’s Law Project.