HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—For the first time, an Indigenous North American filmmaker has received an Oscar nomination. Julian Brave NoiseCat joined documentarian Emily Kassie to create, "Sugarcane," based on investigating systemic abuses inflicted by the government-funded St. Joseph's Mission in Williams Lake First Nation.
The documentary tells the story of NoiseCat's father, who was born in a dormitory at the school and found in the school's incinerator.
He was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children forced to attend the schools, which were designed to assimilate them into...