Emily Kassie Filmmaker

Emily Kassie is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and investigative journalist. Her feature documentary debut, Sugarcane, directed alongside Julian Brave NoiseCat, follows an investigation into abuses at a former Indian Residential School. Sugarcane, which Kassie also served as producer and cinematographer, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing Award for Documentary and was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Kassie’s Peabody and Emmy-nominated work for The New York Times, PBS Frontline, Netflix, and others ranges from drug and weapons trafficking in the Saharan desert to America’s immigrant detention system, to the Taliban’s crackdown on women, and has garnered multiple Edward R. Murrow, World Press Photo, and National Press Photographers awards. Her work on the economic exploitation of the Syrian and West African refugee crises won the Overseas Press Club Award and a National Magazine Award. She was a New America Fellow, a Forbes 30 under 30, and a Gates Scholar at Cambridge.