Biography

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Sheila Laffey

Greater Los Angeles area

Producer/Director

Tags: u.s. public television  The Truth  the documentary career  Sundance Channel  Sundance  short documentaries  political/social issue documentaries  Native American Media  music documentaries  morgan spurlock   michael moore  HBO  Frontline  film history  environmental issues  documentary magazine  documentary history  

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Supplementary Information

Title/Occupation:  Director 

Gender: Female

Citizenship: USA

Languages Spoken: English, French

Brief Message to Members: 

We are in the midst of a Golden Age of Documentaries, a time when the cumulative effect of conscious media can make a difference! Many are reaching for unity and the paradigm shift seems to be happening. May our work facilitate that!

Biography: 

BIO FOR SHEILA A. LAFFEY, Ph.D.,
Filmmaker and SMC Professor

Sheila is an award winning producer of documentaries and short dramatic films, mostly on the environment. Her latest release is the short doc, SOUTH CENTRAL FARM: OASIS IN A CONCRETE DESERT which premiered at AFI Fest, aired on the Public Television “Natural Heroes” series, screened at various festivals, and is distributed by
Green Planet Films.

She co-directed and co-produced the feature documentary on mentoring, SHOW ME THE WAY with Oscar nominated William Gazecki which screened at the Palisades Film Festival and Detroit International Film Festival, among others.

Her films in THE LAST STAND series on the Ballona Wetlands controversy, hosted by Ed Asner , won 15 awards, including a Cine Golden Eagle, and Best Documentary at several festivals. The 2004 version won a Telly Award for the 13 part "NATURAL HEROES" Public Television series in which it aired. It is distributed by Green Planet Films.

Laffey produced WE ALL NEED THE FOREST and IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA, children's environmental dramatic shorts filmed in Hawaii for the O'hi'a Project and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. HAWAII IN TRANSITION: VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE aired on over 20 PBS stations and is distributed by the Video Project. She was a co-producer of GEO-THERMAL: A RISKY BUSINESS IN HAWAII'S WAO KELE O PUNA RAINFOREST which helped save the last lowland tropical forest in the country from unwise development. She produced her first film, WALDEN
while a student at Tufts University.

Sheila was Associate Producer of the 10 part ARTV series produced by ETV Hawaii. Series programs
won many awards and aired on some PBS stations.

Laffey is Adjunct Film Professor at Santa Monica College. She earned a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University. Her courses include Green Screen: Films on the Environment and Transformation, Reality Bytes:
Documentaries that Made a Difference, Films of Social Protest: Michael Moore, Oliver Stone and Hal Ashby on
Screen and The Art of Alfred Hitchcock