Emily Kassie is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and investigative journalist whose work lives at the fault lines of power and vulnerability.
Her feature documentary Sugarcane, directed with Julian Brave NoiseCat—on which she also served as producer and cinematographer—investigates abuses at a former Indian residential school; the film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing Award and Vanguard Award. It was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary and has received more than 50 international honors, including the National Board of Review Award for Best Documentary, a Cinema Eye Award and two Critics' Choice Awards, with additional nominations from the Directors Guild, Peabody, Gotham, and Independent Spirit Awards. Acquired by National Geographic Documentary Films, Sugarcane is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Kassie’s work, including for Frontline PBS, The New York Times, and The Guardian, follows people surviving corrupt and violent systems—women resisting erasure under Taliban rule, Syrian child-workers keeping their families fed, migrants caught in trafficking schemes in the Saharan desert. Her New York Times investigation on sexual abuse in immigrant detention was cited in U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Her short films and investigations have earned multiple Emmy nominations and won honors from the Peabody Awards, Edward R. Murrow Awards, Overseas Press Club, World Press Photo, and National Magazine Awards. She was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and was a New America Fellow and Sundance Catalyst Fellow.
Previously, Kassie oversaw visual journalism at Highline (HuffPost) and The Marshall Project, where she launched a Sundance Institute partnership supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated filmmakers. She graduated from Brown University and was a Gates Scholar at Cambridge. Her first short documentary, I Married My Family’s Killer, won the 2015 Student Academy Award. Kassie is currently writing a book to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2028.
Selected Honors
Academy Award nomination, Best Documentary
National Board of Review, Best Documentary
Critics Choice Awards (2)
Directors Guild of America nomination
Directing Award: US Documentary, Sundance Film Festival
Peabody nomination (2)
Emmy nomination (2)
Cinema Eye, Best Cinematography
National Magazine Award (2)
Forbes 30 under 30
New America Fellow
Sundance Catalyst Fellow
Overseas Press Club Award (2)
Peabody Future of Media Award
World Press Photo Award (2)
Edward R. Murrow Award (3)
National Press Photographer Award (8)
POYI Multimedia Photographer of the Year
Punch Sulzberger Award, American Society of News Editors
Front Page Award (2)
Deadline Award
Livingston Award Finalist
Gates Scholar
Student Academy Award, Documentary