SANDY CIOFFI

Seattle-based filmmaker Sandy Cioffi uses film to raise awareness and produce social change. A professor of film and video at Seattle Central Community College, Cioffi has made many films on many subjects, including the challenges to human rights in a post-9/11 world (And Justice For All, 2003), living with AIDS (Crocodile Tears, 1997), and drug and alcohol prevention (Friends Like That and Will, 2005). She has done documentary work in Northen Ireland, Central America, and South Africa.

Her current film project was made in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In 2005 Cioffi was in Nigeria filming the building of a library funded partly by an American non-profit called Global Citizen Journey, partly by a Nigerian student group, and partly by Chevron. She became aware of the terrible condition of the delta residents, whose homes, culture, and livelihood were falling apart due to the impact of the oil industry there. Despite the enormous profits being made by the oil companies and the federal government, the local people found themselves increasingly and incongruously in poverty. Cioffi came to realize that she was sitting on a powder keg that was about to explode in a series of kidnappings and acts of armed violence. She went home, raised money, and returned to film for a month in order to tell this crucial story that has not yet been fully told. The result is Sweet Crude, now in its final post-production.

For more information about Cioffi, and online access to many of her films, go to www.SandyCioffi.com.

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