Julian Brave NoiseCat

At heart, Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, son, brother, nephew, cousin, godfather, friend and community member. Julian’s work cuts across the fields of journalism, policy, research, art, activism and advocacy, often engaging multiple disciplines at once.

A writer and filmmaker currently based in the Pacific Northwest, Julian is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie. He is a fellow of the Center for Racial Justice at University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy as well as New America and the Type Media Center and is currently writing his first book, We Survived the Night, an account of contemporary Indigenous life in the U.S. and Canada woven together with a personal narrative that explores trauma, resilience, and creativity in the face of enduring colonial oppression.

Julian is also the director of Sugarcane, his first documentary and a gripping investigation of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school unearths secrets below and above ground, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants

A columnist for Canada’s National Observer, Julian’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker among other publications and has been recognized with numerous awards including 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.” In 2021, Julian was named to the TIME100 Next list of emerging leaders.