Reel Rundown: ‘Sugarcane,’ Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Feature, tells Native story of horrors committed by Catholic church

Some 300 miles and change northwest of Spokane sits the Canadian city of Kamloops. Keep driving 172 miles farther northwest and you’ll run into the Williams Lake Indian Reserve.

Also known as the Sugarcane Reserve, or just simply Sugarcane, the reserve – which is one of the 3,406 such designated areas across Canada – is the focal point of the documentary film “Sugarcane.”

Co-directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, and one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature, the film is streaming on several sites (including Hulu, Disney+ and YouTube TV).

A major aspect of the film involves co-director NoiseCat attempting to do two essential things. One is to connect with his estranged father, Ed Archie NoiseCat. The other is to get at the heart of the abuse that the elder NoiseCat and many members of his family say they suffered at St. Joseph’s Mission, the residential school near the Williams Lake Reserve.

That particular school was operated by the Catholic congregation of priests, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. And it was just one such school, run by various religious groups, that had been formed as early as the late 17th century.

But it wasn’t until the 1820s that the idea of indoctrinating indigenous children into what was seen as superior European Canadian society became a widely accepted policy. It was seen, the film charges, as a means of solving what was termed “the Indian problem.”

Attendance at the schools was made compulsory by the Canadian government in 1894. By the time the last federally sponsored school closed in 1997, an estimated 150,000 children had been run through the system. And although the exact number is debated, more than 4,000 children are thought to have died either at the schools – or trying to escape from them.

Co-directors NoiseCat and Kassie follow members of the Williams Lake clan, mainly Charlene Belleau and Willie Sellars, in their attempts to investigate the abuse allegations. Their intent is to build on the discovery in 2021 of what are thought to be dozens of unmarked graves near St. Joseph’s Mission.

The film focuses also on the late Rick Gilbert, a former chief of the Williams Lake First Nation who was part of a First Nation delegation invited to Rome in 2022 to receive an apology from Pope Francis. Gilbert, who himself was a victim of abuse at St. Joseph’s, died in 2023.

Much of “Sugarcane” unfolds as a blend of archival footage, scenes of NoiseCat father and son attempting to repair their relationship, Gilbert and his wife tending a local church, and Belleau and Sellars dredging through archives trying to identify the staff of St. Joseph’s (which closed in 1981). All of this occurs as a backdrop to life as it exists on today’s Williams Lake Reserve.

One irony the film presents involves a stark contrast: the scenic Canadian countryside set against the individual stories of abuse and even death that took place there. Particularly powerful are scenes in which older tribal members struggle to reveal their experiences. Long-suppressed painful memories are, the film makes clear, difficult to confront.

One particularly emotional scene comes when Ed Archie NoiseCat meets with his mother, the woman who years before had abandoned him. It turns out that she likely had a good reason to do so, as DNA evidence indicates she may have been impregnated by a priest.

Another poignant scene comes after the former chief Gilbert listened to Pope Francis deliver his apology. When Gilbert then meets with Louis Lougen, Superior General of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a crestfallen Lougen offers his own apology. Besides being succinct, Gilbert’s response to this is one that all governments should heed.

“Being sorry is the first step,” he says. “You have to take action.”