CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival

CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival, a new festival based in Bellingham, Washington, will bring two documentary films and their directors to Bellingham October 29, 2016.

As part of the Pickford Film Center’s month-long Doctober featuring documentary films from around the world, CASCADIA will bring “Sweet Crude,” a film about the oil industry’s environmental devastation of Nigeria’s Niger Delta and the human toll of that devastation. Directed by Sandy Cioffi, the film was the 2009 winner of the Seattle International Film Festival and has won awards at festivals worldwide including Korea, the Bahamas, Strasbourg, Oaxaca in Mexico, Red Rock in Southern Utah, Ashland, and Everett. “Sweet Crude” will play October 29 at 4:00 pm at the Pickford Film Center.

“Drawing the Tiger,” directed by Amy Benson and her husband Scott Squire, is the second CASCADIA documentary presented by the CASCADIA Women’s Film Festival. It is the portrait of a Nepali family struggling to escape their deep, generational cycle of poverty. Filmed over seven years, “Drawing the Tiger,” tells the story of a bright child awarded a scholarship to attend school in the city. She is the family’s best hope of moving away from despair. It will run on October 29 as well.

“Our mission at CASCADIA is to showcase films directed by women,” said Cheryl Crooks, President. “These two films are great examples of worldwide political and policy issues and their effects on families, particularly women.”

As part of the Festival, the directors of both of these films will be available after each film. They will talk about their struggles to make these films and the impacts the films have had on them and on audiences. For example, Seattle based director of “Sweet Crude” Sandy Cioffi, Producer Tammi Sims, and photojournalists Sean Porter and Cliff Worsham, along with Nigerian-American Joel Bisina, were taken into custody and handed over to Nigerian State Security Services. They were held for seven days without being charged and without access to legal counsel.

Director Amy Benson began filming “Drawing the Tiger” as a promotional piece for an NGO about the power of educating girls in the developing world. When a young woman unexpectedly commits suicide, critical questions about survival, illiteracy, child marriage, mental health and love reshape the story. Filmed over seven years, Amy Benson draws a link between extreme poverty and suicide – currently the number one cause of death for women in Nepal.