Julian Brave NoiseCat

An outspoken activist and engaging speaker, Julian Brave NoiseCat is a passionate storyteller. A proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq̓éscen̓ and descendant of the Líl̓wat Nation of Mount Currie, NoiseCat is also an award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, champion powwow dancer, and student of Salish art and history. Whether involving public policy, environmental justice, or Indigenous rights, all aspects of NoiseCat’s work use the lessons of history to explore how societies can enact positive change. His first book, We Survived the Night, is a profound and unforgettable portrait of contemporary Indigenous life, alongside an intimate and deeply powerful reckoning between a father and a son.

“The traditional way to say good morning in Secwepemctsín, the language of my people and ancestors is ‘tsecwínucw-k.’ Except it doesn’t mean ‘good morning.’ It means ‘you survived the night.” Inspired by five years of immersive reporting and written in the style of a “Coyote Story”—traditional tales of the trickster figure central to his people—We Survived the Night revives an Indigenous storytelling form nearly lost to colonization. The book explores NoiseCat’s journey of identity and belonging, raised by his non-Native mother following the absence of his Secwépemc and St’at’imc father—an artist burdened by a painful past. Immersing himself in Native history and culture, NoiseCat grapples with the erasure of North America’s First Peoples and seeks to understand his father, his story, and where he came from. The powerful narrative is a rewriting and restoration—of Native history and, more intimately, of family and self—as NoiseCat seeks to reclaim a culture effaced by colonization and reconcile with a father who left.

NoiseCat’s first documentary Sugarcane (2024), which he co-directed alongside Emily Kassie, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia and the trauma that has cascaded through the generations. Sugarcane premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival where NoiseCat and Kassie won the Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition. Sugarcane received 39 awards including Best Documentary from the National Board of Review and was nominated for both a Peabody and an Academy Award.

An award-winning journalist, NoiseCat’s work has appeared in dozens of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. He received the 2022 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which honors “excellence in long-form, narrative or deep reporting on stories about underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups in the present American landscape.” Before becoming a full-time writer and filmmaker, NoiseCat was a political strategist, policy analyst and cultural organizer. In 2021, NoiseCat was named to TIME’s 100 Next list of emerging leaders. He grew up in Oakland, California and currently lives in Washington state.

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