The Garden Theatre is welcoming filmmaker Emily Kassie to Princeton on March 19 at 7 p.m. for an in-person discussion following a screening of her Oscar-nominated documentary, Sugarcane. The event is in partnership with Princeton Humanities Initiative, Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton, and the Department of Religion at Princeton University.

Sugarcane, which was co-directed by Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. The film is a display of communal processing and perseverance in breaking down cycles of intergenerational trauma. It is Kassie’s and NoiseCat’s first feature documentary.

Kassie has worked extensively as a visual and investigative journalist covering geopolitical conflict, humanitarian crises, corruption, and the stories of people caught in the crossfire. She has directed, shot and reported numerous films and visual investigations for The New York Times, PBS Frontline, and The Guardian, among others.

Her work has followed the Taliban’s crackdown on women, climate injustice in Nigeria, the exploitation of the refugee crisis, America’s immigrant detention system, drug and weapons trafficking in the Saharan desert, child labor in Turkey, and more. In 2021, she smuggled into Taliban territory with PBS Newshour correspondent Jane Ferguson to report on their imminent siege of Kabul. Her work on sexual abuse in immigrant detention was used in the senate judiciary hearings on child separation at the US border.

Tickets are available at the box office or online at princetongardentheatre.org/films/sugarcane.