INDIGENOUS | Indigenous Survivance

Sugarcane: First Nations’ Resilience and Trauma amid Institutionalized Genocide (2 of 6)

Oscar-nominated filmmakers, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emilly Kassie, talk about the substantive issues explored in their latest documentary, Sugarcane, including the genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America, Canadian residential schools, European colonialism, and their hopes for their film’s impact.

In the second segment of this six-part interview, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie talk to Kakoli Mitra about why they believe that First Nations and Native American peoples have managed to build resilience and persevere, despite centuries of systematic physical genocide and cultural annihilation that they were subjected to by European colonizing institutions. Julian explains the profound irony of the fact that residential schools were deeply dehumanizing institutions that were premised on the idea that Native peoples (and their cultures) were backwards and dirty and ugly and deserved to die, yet that it was/is precisely these ancient Native cultures — with their communal and family structures, which are also deeply human — that have enabled Native people to be resilient. Emily describes having been among many different peoples around the world (including her own community of Jewish holocaust survivors and their descendants), who are bonded by collective trauma. She talks about how Indigenous communities, like the First Nations people portrayed in Sugarcane, are not just bonded by trauma, but by the common experience of having been systematically colonized, abused, and attempted to be eradicated, thus being able to build resilience rooted in deep communal connections.

author Julian Brave NoiseCat (he) is a writer, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, champion powwow dancer, and student of Salish art and history; his first book, 'We Survived the Night,' will be published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 21, 2025.
author_affiliation Indigenous North America | Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation (of the Secwépemc (Shuswap))
residence United States
Community First Resilience
author Emily Kassie (she) is an Oscar-, Emmy-, and Peabody-nominated filmmaker and investigative journalist; her work for The New York Times, PBS Frontline, Netflix, and others ranges from America’s immigrant detention system to the Taliban's crackdown on women.
author_affiliation Europe
residence United States