Sugarcane

Kassie and NoiseCat marry rigour with compassion, giving the survivors the platform to talk while understanding that some things are too hard to put into words.

The damaged, rising community depicted in Sugarland are in no mood for apologies. They want accountability.

It’s a remarkably courageous and exposed work, particularly for co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat and his father, Ed Archie NoiseCat, whose painful journey together in search of healing is the film’s spine.

Deeply disquieting and indeed enraging.

This multipronged filmmaking approach, chronicling the painstaking work of a cold case while documenting what years of whispers and silence have wrought, is what gives “Sugarcane” its raw power.

The filmmakers resist every opportunity to amp up or falsify a single development. The truth is scalding enough.

It's a worthy subject but I wish the interviewing was better

Sugarcane succeeds on every level...

I think that familial, personal connection allows Sugarcane to go to the dark places in which these types of journalistic exposés aren't often able to go. You need a ton of trust to go on-the-record and revisit a nightmare.

This is a big subject, but this film succeeds by making it very personal, especially the very emotional personal cost of what happened at this school. The attempts to confront the past include a number of churches burned by those angry about this issue.