At St. Joseph’s Mission School, near Williams Lake in British Columbia’s picturesque Sugarcane Valley, the past casts a long shadow. For over a century, Indigenous children were forcibly taken here, cut off from family and culture, in an attempt to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian ways. Dire abuses took place within its walls before it closed in 1981. Now, filmmakers Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat seek to shed light on this darkness in their powerful new documentary, Sugarcane.

Joining the community in investigating mounting allegations, Kassie and NoiseCat guide us through a harrowing unearthing of the truth. We learn of the investigators working to identify those who never returned home and the anguish of survivors breaking decades of silence. NoiseCat also shares his own family ties; his father was born at St. Joseph’s, though its impact has remained unspoken. Through these intimate threads, a larger portrait emerges of...