Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand (BLUE VINYL, COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE, LOVE & STUFF) is best known for her ability to take the dark worlds of chemical exposure, corporate malfeasance, environmental injustice, disaster politics and deep grief and parenting, and make them personal, highly-charged and even entertaining. Bringing organizing know-how, a sixth sense for effective strategy, and years of engagement experience, Helfand creates unique and powerful community-centered campaigns for each of her films, often tying them to ongoing movements at the forefront of social change. A committed field-builder, Helfand co-founded Working Films in 1999, which uses documentaries to increase civic engagement and shift culture, and Chicken & Egg Pictures in 2005, which supports women and gender non-conforming documentary filmmakers at critical stages in their careers, where she is now a Senior Creative Consultant and co-leader of their (Egg)celerator Lab. She has received fellowships from Rockefeller, Sundance, USA Artists, curates documentary-focused public programs and storytelling retreats, and is a world-class pitch trainer/moderator, co-creating programs at Double Exposure’s DOCX Academy, Athena Film Festival and Chicken & Egg Pictures. She is a visiting professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism in the Documentary Program and lives in NYC with her 7-year-old daughter Theo.
Judith Helfand
