National Geographic Documentary Films Debuts Trailer for Sundance Award-Winner Sugarcane

National Geographic Documentary Films released the official trailer and key art for its forthcoming film SUGARCANE, from first-time director and TIME100 Next honoree Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emmy®- and Peabody-nominated investigative journalist, director, producer and cinematographer Emily Kassie. SUGARCANE will be released by Variance Films in the U.S. and by Films We Like in Canada on Aug. 9 and will stream later this year on Hulu and Disney+.

“Enlightening and infuriating” (Variety), SUGARCANE is an epic, nuanced and sensitive cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. Amidst the groundbreaking investigation into abuse and deaths at an Indian residential school in Canada, the film’s courageous participants break cycles of intergenerational trauma by facing painful, long-ignored truths and rebuilding broken family bonds.

After making its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year — where it won the U.S. Documentary Competition Directing Award — the film went on to receive the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award from the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the 2024 Filmmaker Award from the Margaret Mead Film Festival. To date, SUGARCANE has won over a dozen awards, including Best Documentary Feature Awards from Mountainfilm, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival and Sarasota Film Festival, along with Special Jury Prizes at the Seattle International Film Festival and the International Film Festival of Boston.

SUGARCANE has been celebrated by critics, calling it “the product of humane and insightful filmmakers who are determined to never let anyone forget” (Variety) and “as much a piece of art about the sins of the past as it is about living with the memory of those sins in the present” (IndieWire).

The Kassie Films and Hedgehog Films production, in association with Impact Partners and Fit Via Vi, was produced by Kassie and Oscar® nominee Kellen Quinn. The director of photography for SUGARCANE is Christopher LaMarca, and the cinematographer is Emily Kassie. The film was edited by Nathan Punwar and Maya Daisy Hawke, with music by Mali Obomsawin. Carolyn Bernstein is executive producer for National Geographic Documentary Films. Executive producers for the film are Bill Way, Elliott Whitton, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Tegan Acton, Emma Pompetti, Grace Lay, Sumalee Montano, Sabrina Merage Naim, Douglas Choi, Adam and Melony Lewis, Meadow Fund, JanaLee Cherneski and Ian Desai, David and Linda Cornfield, Maida Lynn, Robina Riccitiello, Nina and David Fialkow. The co-executive producers are Kelsey Koenig, Lauren Haber, Meryl Metni and Jennifer Pelling.

The following theaters will be showing SUGARCANE:

• New York – Film Forum – An exclusive engagement begins Aug. 9
• Toronto – TIFF Lightbox – An exclusive engagement begins Aug. 9
• Los Angeles – Laemmle Royal – An exclusive engagement begins Aug. 16

Additional U.S. and Canadian cities and theaters will open beginning Aug. 16.

Since its inception in 2017, National Geographic Documentary Films has been lauded around the world for telling timely, gripping and globally relevant stories. It released the Academy®-, BAFTA and seven-time Emmy Award-winning film “Free Solo,” the Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” the Academy- and BAFTA Award-nominated and Peabody- and DGA Award-winning “Fire of Love,” and the Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning film “The Cave”. In recent years, the film banner’s slate has also included the duPont-Columbia Award- and two-time Sundance Award-winner “The Territory;” BAFTA nominees “The Rescue” and “Becoming Cousteau;” Emmy Award winners “The First Wave;” “LA 92” and “Jane” and many other critically acclaimed features and shorts.