Emily Kassie
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]
Early life and education
[edit]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
[edit]Kassie has covered conflict and human rights abuses internationally. In 2016, she won the World Press Photo award for multimedia on the cover up of DuPont's chemical spill in West Virginia[8] and was also named one of NPPA's 2016 multimedia portfolios of the year for her work on radicalization of ISIS operatives and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.[9] In 2017 she won an Overseas Press Club Award,[10] a National Magazine Award[11] and the ASNE's Punch Sulzberger award[12] for her work reporting on the profiteers of the refugee crisis, in Niger, Turkey, Italy and Germany.
In 2019, she won the World Press Photo award and was nominated for an Emmy for her New York Times documentary on sexual abuse in immigrant detention.[13] In 2020, she won a National Magazine Award for her immersive documentary on immigrant detention[14] and was nominated for a Peabody Award.[15] She was named to Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2020.[16] In 2021, she was nominated for an Emmy for a Frontline documentary on undocumented immigrants in the pandemic.[17]
She was part of the PBS NewsHour team to win the Overseas Press Club award for a series on the fall of Afghanistan in 2021.[18]
She served as director, producer and cinematographer of Sugarcane with co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat. The film won the Grand Jury Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival.[19]
Sugarcane was acquired by National Geographic Documentary Films and streams of 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
[edit]| Year | Organization Name | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Directors Guild of America Awards | Documentary | Nominated |
| 2025 | National Board of Review | Best Documentary | Won |
| 2024 | Critics Choice Awards | Political Documentary | Won |
| 2024 | Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize | Directing | Won |
| 2021 | Overseas Press Club Award | The Peter Jennings Award | Won |
| 2020 | National Magazine Awards | Multimedia Story of the Year | Won |
| 2019 | News and Documentary Emmy Awards | Hard News Feature | Nominated |
| 2019 | Peabody Awards | General | Nominated |
| 2018 | Peabody Futures of Media Award | General | Won |
| 2017 | Overseas Press Club Award | International Reporting | Won |
| 2017 | National Magazine Awards | Multimedia Story of the Year | Won |
| 2017 | American Society of News Editors | The Punch Sulzberger Award | Won |
| 2016 | World Press Photo Awards | Immersive Storytelling | Won |
| 2015 | Student Academy Award | Documentary | Won |
References
[edit]- ^ "Emily Kassie". Pulitzer Center.
- ^ "How Emily Kassie brings a fresh eye to well-covered stories". Poynter. 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
- ^ "2024 Sundance Film Festival Announces Award Winners". Sundance Institute. 26 January 2024.
- ^ "Emily Kassie '14 Wins Student Academy Award | Watson Institute". watson.brown.edu. 26 January 2024.
- ^ "13 Gates Scholars to join POLIS in 2016 — Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS)". www.polis.cam.ac.uk.
- ^ "ACADEMY REVEALS 2015 STUDENT ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2015-08-25.
- ^ "CBC.ca - Program Guide - Programs". www.cbc.ca.
- ^ "World Press Photo 2016 winners - in pictures". The Guardian. 2016-02-18. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
- ^ "NPPA Best Of Photojournalism Multimedia Category Winners Announced". NPPA. 2016-03-23.
- ^ "OPC 20 Best Digital Reporting on International Affairs". opcofamerica.org. 24 March 2017.
- ^ "The 2017 National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List". Longreads. 2017-02-07.
- ^ "ASNE proud to announce winners of 2017 awards for best journalism". asne.org.
- ^ "I Just Simply Did What He Wanted | World Press Photo". www.worldpressphoto.org.
- ^ "THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGAZINE EDITORS ANNOUNCES WINNERS FOR 2020 NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS". www.asme.media.
- ^ "Detained". The Peabody Awards.
- ^ "Emily Kassie". Forbes.
- ^ "42nd Annual News & Documentary Nominations – The Emmys". theemmys.tv. 27 July 2021.
- ^ "Awards Recipients". OPC.
- ^ 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.