We have seen a few documentaries and feature films that have covered the impact of residential schools: Birth of a Family and Rhymes for Young Ghouls leap to mind. Sugarcane feels like the documentary with a laser type focus on the impact of residential schools.
Julian Brave NoiseCat, co-director of Sugarcane, talks to his father and grandmother about the impact of St. Joseph's Mission near Williams Lake, British Columbia.
We see investigators looking into the past. This comes on the heels of the remains of 215 students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Williams Lake is about 228 km (179 m) northwest of Kamloops.
NoiseCat has a vested interest in getting his father and grandmother to talk about what happened. The stigma of shame and silence means that the people who suffered do not want to discuss the experience. Some of that stems from those authority figures punishing those who talk.
Some of what you look for in this film is the significance behind the silence when asked about the atrocities.
As much as we have heard about this topic in Canada, the United States, which has its own residential schools, has barely covered this topic. U.S. President Joe Biden issued an apology for the U.S. Indian Boarding Schools program in late October. This is an important first step.
This film is an important step as well.
One disturbing element we discover is that there is evidence that priests impregnated some girls at the school. The girls gave birth and those babies were incinerated.
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The film is paced well and you find yourself horrified and wanting to learn more. The archival footage that made the residential schools seem happy is really creepy. You have to understand that whitewashing of the coverage of these schools was part of the master plot to hide the truth from white people for multiple generations.
Sugarcane is a hard watch but very necessary. Watch it with your parents and children, giving them to ask questions after the film is over.
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Sugarcane made the shortlist for the Academy Awards for documentary feature film.
Sugarcane had a theatre release this summer in the U.S. and Canada. The documentary also played at the 2024 Windsor International Film Festival. The film ran earlier this month in the United States on the National Geographic Channel and is available on Disney+ and Hulu.
video credit: National Geographic
photo credit: Sugarcane
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