An investigation at an Indian residential school in Canada is the focus of the documentary Sugarcane,

named after a native reservation in British Columbia.

The film is up for an Academy Award and has already made history.

It's the first time an indigenous director from North America has been nominated for an Oscar.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown spoke to the filmmakers for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

I have felt dirty as ending all my life in residential school.

Sugarcane tells a horrific history, the abuse of several generations of native children at St. Joseph's

mission in British Columbia, in a deeply personal way, through individuals who experienced it,

and family members who've lived with the consequences. One of the latter, co-director, Julian

Brave Noiscat. Despite the fact that my own family attended St. Joseph's mission and survived the Indian

residential schools, I actually knew very little about their experiences at them, in part

because it was not something that we talked about.

I think that the memories in particular for my grandmother who attended St. Joseph's mission,

you know, she really didn't speak about what happened at that school.

So this film was, you know, in part, an act of self-discovery for myself and even more so for my

father who was born at that school in circumstances that we didn't really know about until

we went about investigating that story through this documentary.

Noise Cat's directing partner is filmmaker and journalist Emily Cassie.

This is the origin story of North America, how the land was taken, how six generations of indigenous children were separated from their families

and forced into these assimilationist schools.

And this film is a story of the past, but it's also a story of the present.

Native communities across North America are still suffering from the highest rates of suicide,

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