Racial Healing Commission Documentary Film Screening: Sugarcane
Sugarcane Documentary Screening
A National Geographic Film & Sundance Film Festival 2024 Award-Winning Documentary
Saturday, January 31, 2026 • 6:00 p.m.
St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Baton Rouge
Free screening & discussion
RSVP HERE for attendance to help us plan for the evening.
Watch trailer and view website: HERE
View flyer for St. Margaret’s Screening HERE
About the Film
Sugarcane is the Sundance Film Festival 2024 award-winning debut feature documentary from
Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie. Produced by National Geographic Documentary Films,
the film examines the history and legacy of an Indian residential school, bringing to light the
forced separation, assimilation, and abuse experienced by Indigenous children at the hands of
Church and government, while also honoring the resilience of Native communities.
We offer this screening as a way to reflect on the history of Indigenous peoples in our country
and to consider how those histories continue to shape our shared life today, inviting us toward
greater understanding, peace, and dignity for all.
This screening is hosted by St. Margaret’s Beloved Community Ministry.
Viewer discretion is advised for Sugarcane
This documentary details the historical and ongoing abuse within Canadian Indian residential schools, specifically focusing on the St. Joseph’s Mission in British Columbia.
This film is rated R.
The 2024 documentary Sugarcane examines the history of abuse at St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in British Columbia, presenting deeply disturbing firsthand testimony and evidence of widespread physical, psychological, and systemic violence.
The film includes explicit discussion and survivor accounts related to the following:
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Abuse and violence: The content includes direct testimony and discussion of profound abuse inflicted on children, both physical and sexual.
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Infanticide: Evidence and survivor testimony indicating that infants born to young Indigenous girls at the school were killed, including accounts involving incineration.
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Physical abuse: Descriptions of severe and repeated violence inflicted on children by mission staff.
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Systemic and colonial violence: Exploration of the forced removal of children from their families and the deliberate erasure of Indigenous culture and language.
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Intergenerational trauma: Depictions of the enduring effects of these abuses across generations, including addiction and suicide.
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Psychological violence: The profound trauma associated with missing children, unmarked graves, and the long-term suppression of memory and truth.