Judith
Helfand

Judith Helfand is a filmmaker, teacher, and media activist whose documentary films are socially conscious and humorous, politically engaged and personal. She addresses corporate responsibility and health issues in two films that focus on her family. InA Healthy Baby Girl(1997), she presents her mother’s story of taking the potentially harmful drug DES during her pregnancy with Helfand. InBlue Vinyl(2002, codirected with Daniel Gold), she searches for the origins of her parents’ new vinyl siding.Everything’s Cool(2007, codirected with Daniel Gold) is about global climate change and those who try to communicate its dangers. Helfand has also run media literacy workshops and engages in political advocacy through her production companies, Working Films and Toxic Comedy Pictures, as well as Chicken and Egg Pictures, which funds women filmmakers.

Portrait photo by Sam Norval.