Emily Kassie

Kassie was born in Toronto and graduated with honors from Brown University. She was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where she completed an MPhil in international relations and politics. In 2015, her short documentary I Married My Family's Killer, about intermarriage in post-genocide Rwanda, won a Student Academy Award. The film was later broadcast by the CBC.

In 2016, Kassie received a World Press Photo award for an investigation into DuPont's chemical contamination in West Virginia. The following year, her reporting on the refugee crisis in Niger, Turkey, Italy and Germany received an Overseas Press Club Award and a National Magazine Award. Kassie subsequently oversaw visual journalism at Highline, HuffPost's investigative magazine, and served as director of visual projects at The Marshall Project. In 2019, Kassie's New York Times documentary on sexual abuse in U.S. immigration detention was presented during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on family separation and received a World Press Photo award and an Emmy nomination. She won a second National Magazine Award in 2020 for her reporting on immigration detention, which was also nominated for a Peabody Award. In 2021, Kassie directed a Frontline documentary following an undocumented family during the COVID-19 pandemic, which received an Emmy nomination. That year, she reported from Taliban-held Afghanistan with PBS NewsHour correspondent Jane Ferguson ahead of the fall of Kabul. Their reporting formed part of PBS NewsHours coverage of Afghanistan that received an Overseas Press Club Award.

Kassie made her feature directorial debut with Sugarcane, co-directed with Julian Brave NoiseCat. Kassie also served as a producer and cinematographer on the film, which follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at a former Indian residential school in British Columbia. Sugarcane premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Kassie and NoiseCat won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award. The film was subsequently acquired by National Geographic Documentary Films for theatrical and streaming distribution. The film received the National Board of Review Award for Best Documentary and two Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. It was screened at the White House and included on Barack Obama's list of favorite films of 2024. In 2025, Kassie, NoiseCat and producer Kellen Quinn were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

• Year — Organization — Category — Result • 2025 — Academy Awards — Best Documentary Feature — Nominated • 2025 — Directors Guild of America Awards — Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary — Nominated • 2025 — Cinema Eye Honors — Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography — Won • 2024 — National Board of Review — Best Documentary — Won • 2024 — Critics' Choice Documentary Awards — Best Political Documentary / Best True Crime Documentary — Won • 2024 — Sundance Film Festival — U.S. Documentary Directing Award — Won • 2021 — Overseas Press Club Award — Peter Jennings Award — Won • 2020 — National Magazine Awards — Multimedia — Won • 2019 — News and Documentary Emmy Awards — Hard News Feature — Nominated • 2019 — World Press Photo — Digital Storytelling — Won • 2017 — National Magazine Awards — Multimedia — Won • 2017 — Overseas Press Club Award — Digital Reporting on International Affairs — Won • 2016 — World Press Photo — Immersive Storytelling — Won • 2015 — Student Academy Award — Documentary — Won