VIFF 2009 | Sweet Crude at Schema : more than ethnic

VIFF 2009 | Sweet Crude

Sweet Crude
USA, 2009, 93 min
DIR: Sandy Cioffi

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After the Canadian premiere of Sweet Crude, the audience sat still and silent. As the closing credits ran to a Rolling Stone's classic "Sympathy for the Devil," the Seattle-based film crew disclosed the large amount of oil they had used during the making of the documentary. The clash was apparent to the director, Sandy Cioffi.

"Obviously I'm part of the problem," said Cioffi during the subsequent Q&A period. "We're all Frankenstein and, at this point, we need to sort this mess out together."

Such frankness was the hallmark of the film, the first feature-length documentary ever made about Nigeria's Niger Delta. The hard-hitting film examines the devastating social and environmental repercussions of oil extraction by companies like Shell and Chevron, particularly in the Oporoza village. The situation may leave you speechless.

But on screen, Cioffi explains that the crew did not intend to make this movie. In 2006, they had arrived in the village to document the building of a library; but, over the next three years, they became increasingly implicated in the indigenous struggle against political corruption, resource exploitation and the brutalization of dissidents.

The villagers, who see nothing of the $700 billion made in oil revenues, are forced to watch their ancestral lands desecrated while the roofs over their heads literally corrode. As resistance movements rise and fall, the Joint Task Force (JTF) of the Nigerian Military has been accused of murdering some 50,000 civilians in attempts to squash dissidence.

"When you're in a place involved in that kind of conflict, it's not the case that anything is neutral ground," said Cioffi to the Vancouver audience.

The film pays particular attention to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND); some members want to fight gun for gun, claiming 25 years of non-violent resistance did not work, while others continue to believe in peaceful dialogue. Many are willing to die fighting rather than live oppressed.

Instead of a "dishonest" claim to neutrality, Cioffi's film offers transparency, making a strong case for a community of people that have been dismissed as wretches and terrorists by much of the mainstream press. Human rage and resilience are skillfully captured in the quietly passionate cinematography, which tells a terrifying story as tastefully as possible.

Schema Magazine's coverage of VIFF 2009 is sponsored by the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival