Emily Kassie

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Emily Kassie (born 15 December 1992) is a Canadian filmmaker and investigative journalist. [1] [2] She won the Directing Award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival for her debut feature documentary Sugarcane . [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Kassie was born in Toronto. She studied at Brown University [4] and was awarded the Gates Scholarship to the University of Cambridge where she completed her masters. [5] In 2015 her short documentary, I Married My Family's Killer, on intermarriage in post-genocide Rwanda, won the Student Academy Award. [6] The film was broadcast on the CBC. [7]

Career

Kassie has covered conflict and human rights abuses internationally. In 2016, she won the World Press Photo award for the cover up of DuPont's chemical spill in West Virginia [8] and was also named NPPA's multimedia portfolios of the year for her work on radicalization of ISIS operatives and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. [9] In 2017 her reporting on the profiteers of the refugee crisis in Niger, Turkey, Italy and Germany garnered an Overseas Press Club Award, [10] , the ASNE's Punch Sulzberger award [11] and the National Magazine Award [12] of which she was the youngest ever winner. [13]

In 2019, her New York Times documentary on sexual abuse in immigrant detention was used in the senate judiciary hearings on child separation, and subsequently won the World Press Photo award and earned an Emmy nomination. [14] In 2020, she won a National Magazine Award for her immersive documentary on immigrant detention [15] and was nominated for a Peabody Award. [16] She was named to Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2020. [17] In 2021, she directed a Frontline documentary following an undocumented family during the coronavirus pandemic which was nominated for an Emmy. [18]

After smuggling into Taliban territory with PBS Newshour correspondent Jane Ferguson to report on their imminent siege of Kabul, Kassie was part of the PBS NewsHour team to win the Overseas Press Club award for a series on the fall of Afghanistan in 2021. [19]

She served as director, producer and cinematographer of Sugarcane with co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat. The film follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school near the Sugarcane reserve in British Columbia. The New York Times called it "stunning" and "a must-see." [20] RogerEbert.com called it "soul-shaking," and "profoundly evocative." [21]

After winning the Grand Jury Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, [22] Sugarcane was acquired by National Geographic Documentary Films and was distributed in theaters before streaming on Hulu and Disney +. It won over 30 International awards including two Critics Choice Awards and the National Board of Review award for best documentary. It was screened at the White House and named to President Barack Obama's top ten movies of 2024.

Accolades

YearOrganization NameCategoryResult
2025 Directors Guild of America Awards DocumentaryNominated
2025 National Board of Review Best DocumentaryWon
2025 Cinema Eye Honors Outstanding Achievement in CinematographyWon
2024 Critics Choice Awards Political DocumentaryWon
2024 Critics Choice Awards True Crime DocumentaryWon
2024Sundance Film Festival Jury PrizeDirectingWon
2021 Overseas Press Club Award The Peter Jennings AwardWon
2021 News and Documentary Emmy Awards Outstanding Continuing Coverage News StoryNominated
2020 National Magazine Awards Multimedia Story of the YearWon
2020 Edward R. Murrow Award News DocumentaryWon
2019 News and Documentary Emmy Awards Hard News FeatureNominated
2019 Peabody Awards GeneralNominated
2019 Edward R. Murrow Award Excellence in VideoWon
2019 Pictures of the Year International Multimedia Photographer of the YearWon
2018Peabody Futures of Media AwardGeneralWon
2018 Edward R. Murrow Award Breaking NewsWon
2018 International Photography Awards Moving Image Photographer of the YearWon
2017 Overseas Press Club Award International ReportingWon
2017 National Magazine Awards Multimedia Story of the YearWon
2017 American Society of News Editors The Punch Sulzberger AwardWon
2016 World Press Photo AwardsImmersive StorytellingWon
2016 National Press Photographers Association Multimedia Portfolio of the YearWon
2015 Student Academy Award DocumentaryWon

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This is a list of winners of the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for documentary features.

<i>Sugarcane</i> (film) 2024 film

Sugarcane is a 2024 documentary film, directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie and produced by Emily Kassie and Kellen Quinn. It follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants.

References

  1. ↑ "Emily Kassie". Pulitzer Center.
  2. ↑ "How Emily Kassie brings a fresh eye to well-covered stories". Poynter. 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
  3. ↑ "2024 Sundance Film Festival Announces Award Winners". Sundance Institute. 26 January 2024.
  4. ↑ "Emily Kassie '14 Wins Student Academy Award | Watson Institute". watson.brown.edu. 26 January 2024.
  5. ↑ "13 Gates Scholars to join POLIS in 2016 — Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS)". www.polis.cam.ac.uk.
  6. ↑ "ACADEMY REVEALS 2015 STUDENT ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2015-08-25.
  7. ↑ "CBC.ca - Program Guide - Programs". www.cbc.ca.
  8. ↑ "World Press Photo 2016 winners - in pictures". The Guardian. 2016-02-18. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
  9. ↑ "NPPA Best Of Photojournalism Multimedia Category Winners Announced". NPPA. 2016-03-23.
  10. ↑ "OPC 20 Best Digital Reporting on International Affairs". opcofamerica.org. 24 March 2017.
  11. ↑ "ASNE proud to announce winners of 2017 awards for best journalism". asne.org.
  12. ↑ "The 2017 National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List". Longreads. 2017-02-07.
  13. ↑ https://www.gatescambridge.org/about/news/impact-prize-profile-emily-kassie/
  14. ↑ "I Just Simply Did What He Wanted | World Press Photo". www.worldpressphoto.org.
  15. ↑ "THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGAZINE EDITORS ANNOUNCES WINNERS FOR 2020 NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS". www.asme.media.
  16. ↑ "Detained". The Peabody Awards.
  17. ↑ "Emily Kassie". Forbes.
  18. ↑ "42nd Annual News & Documentary Nominations – The Emmys". theemmys.tv. 27 July 2021.
  19. ↑ "Awards Recipients". OPC.
  20. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/movies/sugarcane-documentary-indigenous-communities.html
  21. ↑ https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sugarcane-documentary-film-review-2024
  22. ↑ Roka, Les (2024-01-25). "Sundance 2024: Superlative and gripping, Sugarcane takes viewers to elucidating plane of empathy, truth, reconciliation". The Utah Review. Retrieved 2024-01-27.
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