The last residential school, the abusive Christian-run institutions created to assimilate Indigenous children across North America into the white world, closed in 1997. I was five years old, starting first grade in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a city named by Creek people, who had arrived after being forced to walk the Trail of Tears from Alabama. My elementary school’s mascot was the Pioneers, which is a polite way of saying “colonists,” which is a polite way of saying “thieves.” Of course the residential schools lasted until the late ’90s, and of course the harm they caused still resonates throughout Indigenous communities. The last few years especially have seen both fiction and nonfiction reckonings—ranging from poetic reeducation of Lakota Nation vs. United States to the genre work of the late filmmaker Jeff Barnaby—with the brutal, federally-mandated violence of residential schools. Few cinematic takes have been as beautiful and compassionate as Sugarcane. From subject/director Julian Brave NoiseCat and director/journalist Emily Kassie, the documentary gives faces, names and histories to those affected by the residential schools—and looks, bracingly, towards a future where healing is possible.

Full review @ Paste