SOPHIE CONSTANTINOU – BIO AND FILMOGRAPHY
Director, Cinematographer and Producer
Sophie Constantinou is the co-founder of Citizen Film, a documentary production nonprofit based in San Francisco, Constantinou creates documentaries at the intersection of storytelling and community engagement.
Her work is acclaimed for tackling complex issues with artistry and sensitivity while catalyzing place-based change and creating healthy, sustainable communities. In addition to acting as co-director of Citizen Film since 2002, Constantinou serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the California Native Plant Society, Collective Eye Films, Park and Recreation Open Space Advisory Committee, College Hill Neighborhood Association, and formerly the Awesome Foundation.
Constantinou received her BA in Film, Cinema, and Video Studies from UC Berkeley and her Master’s degree from San Francisco State University. She serves as a jury chair for SF Film, and an instructor at City College San Francisco. She is also a graduate of Leadership San Francisco and the Coro Leadership Fellowship.
SAN FRANCISCO INITIATIVES
Since 2010, she has worked in San Francisco’s Western Addition on a series of films, engagement initiatives, and education programs bringing attention to the inequities of the neighborhood’s predominantly Black community. The Buchanan Stories / Buchanan Change project covers a range of subjects, from local artists and gardeners to issues such as law enforcement and workforce development. Running parallel to a park renovation project, this storytelling campaign highlights the efforts needed to engage city departments and mobilize community support. The project began with Green Streets (2015), a film about a group of young-adult African-American residents of public housing who have taken charge of their community’s waste management, “turning trash into cash” and creating jobs in inner-city San Francisco. The Buchanan Stories / Buchanan Change project has catalyzed over $45 million in capital improvements specifically to the Buchanan Street Mall, a public 5 block park in the neighborhood.
She is the founder of the Bernal Cut Project, a community-led biodiversity initiative to transform 16 acres of inner city open space into a habitat corridor and immersive learning. She received a San Francisco Board of Supervisors commendation for her organizing work in 2019.
CITIZEN FILM
Constantinou founded Citizen Film in 2002 alongside Sam Ball and Kate Stilley Steiner.
From 2003 through 2013, Constantinou produced and directed the Community Leadership Series for the San Francisco Foundation. Annually, the foundation recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations whose leadership makes a significant impact in Bay Area communities by granting them a Community Leadership Award. Citizen Film created short documentaries distilling each winner’s story into a film. These productions premiere at the San Francisco Foundation’s annual Community Leadership Awards, and are used by the award winners to communicate the need for and impact of their work.
In 2012, Constantinou produced and directed photography for Joann Sfar Draws from Memory, an American Public Television documentary broadcast nationwide on PBS profiling bestselling graphic novelist Joann Sfar.
In 2014, Sophie Constantinou co-directed and served as Cinematographer for Lunch Love Community, a transmedia project offering shareable, creative resources to inspire change in the way kids eat. This mosaic of community gatherings and short documentaries co-directed by Constantinou and Helen De Michiel has engaged thousands of parents, teachers and activists interested in creating a sustainable system for providing locally produced, organic lunches to public school students.
From 2014 through 2024, Constantinou led Citizen Film’s collaboration with GLIDE Memorial Church in San Francisco, creating documentary shorts for their Values series. GLIDE is a radically inclusive church, a social justice organization, a movement for change, and San Francisco’s premier provider of innovative services for marginalized populations. Constantinou worked with founders Reverend Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani to film a series of shorts speaking to GLIDE’s core values, including Radically Inclusive, Truth Telling, and Celebration.
From 2021 through 2024, Constantinou led Citizen Film’s Narrative Shift project in collaboration with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s Dream Keeper Initiative. Narrative Shift includes a suite of 9 short films about individuals, organizations and events supported by the Dream Keeper Initiative, centering contemporary issues including labor organizing, workforce opportunities, foster care, and entrepreneurship. Constantinou took on varying roles in the production of each film, from cinematographer to director. The films were shared in theaters, community spaces, and online to foster a larger, public conversation about the value of investing in the Black community.
OTHER FILM WORK
Constantinou has acted as Director and Cinematographer on numerous projects. Trans (1994), a playful documentary short about Henry, a transgender man, first premiered at the 18th San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (now Frameline), proceeded to screen at every major North American LGBTQ festival between 1994 and 1996, and was included in the Criterion Channel’s Masc series in 2023. Between the Lines (1997), which was distributed on the Sundance Channel, explores gray areas in women’s relationship to their bodies in the context of deliberate self-harm. Divided Loyalties (1999) is a poignant documentary about the cultural and historical split of Cyprus, her father’s homeland, which reflects on a legacy of conflict and diaspora through interviews with immigrants and exiles.
The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015), feature-length cinematic essays directed by Jenni Olson, were both filmed by Constantinou and became official selections at the Sundance Film Festival in their respective years.
Constantinou frequently works as Director of Photography on projects with larger organizations, including PBS and HBO. The PBS documentary Presumed Guilty (2000) chronicles three years of trench warfare in San Francisco jails, holding cells and courts. The PBS/POV film Maquilapolis (2006) explores labor practices in factories along the US-Mexican border as told by women laborers who worked hand-in-hand with Constantinou to determine the film’s look and style. The HBO feature documentary Unchained Memories (2004) brings to life the words of former slaves through stylized performances by African-American actors. Constantinou also filmed KQED’s Emmy-Award Winning Home Front (2001) and feature-length HBO documentary Regarding Susan Sontag (2014).
FILMOGRAPHY
- Trans (1994) Director
- Jodie: An Icon (1996) Cinematographer
- Between the Lines (1997) Director/Cinematographe
- Kablam! (1997) Cinematographer
- Sleep Comes Free Me (1998) Cinematographer
- Life History of a Star (1999) Cinematographer
- Divided Loyalties (1999) Director/Producer/Editor
- Presumed Guilty (2000) Director of Photography
- Desi’s Looking for a New Girl (2000) Cinematographer
- Home Front (2001) Cinematographer
- Some Real Heat (2001) Cinematographer
- Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay (2002) Cinematographer
- Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness (2003) Cinematographer
- No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon (2003) Cinematographer
- Unchained Memories (2004) Director of Photography
- Monumental: David Brower’s Fight for Wild America (2004) Cinematographer
- The Joy of Life (2005) Cinematographer
- Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria (2005) Cinematographer
- The Tribe (2005) Cinematographer
- Maquilapolis (2006) Director of Photography
- Independent Lens (2006) Cinematographer
- P.O.V. (2006) Cinematographer
- Hats Off (2008) Cinematographer
- Balancing Acts: A Jewish Theater in the Soviet Union (2008) Cinematographer
- 575 Castro St. (2009) Cinematographer
- Race to Nowhere (2010) Cinematographer
- Joann Sfar Draws from Memory (2012) Producer/Cinematographer
- People of the Graphic Novel (2012) Cinematographer
- Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth (2013) Director of Photography
- Lunch Love Community (2014) Co-Director/Cinematographer
- Regarding Susan Sontag (2014) Director of Photography
- Potsdam Revisited: Overture to the Cold War (2014) Cinematographer
- The Rifleman’s Violin (2014) Cinematographer
- The Royal Road (2015) Cinematographer
- Green Streets (2015) Director/Cinematographer
- Buchanan Stories Buchanan Change (2015-Present) Director/Cinematographer
- 30,000 Days (2017) Cinematographer
- American Creed (2018) Cinematographer
- The Two Eighty Project (2021) Director
- Live this Loudly: Afatasi (2022) Director
- Ian James Made (2022) Producer/Sound
- Harlem of the West: Then and Now (2024) Director