Meet Peabody Award-winning film director, Judith Helfland, via Zoom!
In your one-hour virtual consultation with Judith Helfand, you can pitch a project, get feedback on a script, ask questions about working in film/tv, work on an audition, or anything else you want to talk about!
Judith Helfand is best known for her ability to use her quirky sense of humor and irony, first-person storytelling chops, and the power of transparency to tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time. Three of her films have premiered at Sundance and were nationally broadcast on PBS (POV, Independent Lens), HBO, and The Sundance Channel. BLUE VINYL received the 2002 Sundance Excellence Award in Cinematography along with two Emmy nominations and its prequel, A HEALTHY BABY GIRL, won a 1997 Peabody Award. Helfand’s other long-form films include EVERYTHING'S COOL and THE UPRISING OF ‘34.
Helfand is a field-builder who has helped reshape the documentary landscape by co-founding two critical organizations, Working Films, and Chicken & Egg Pictures. As Creative Director she helped design and lead Chicken & Egg Pictures’ mentorship and funding programs for nearly a decade, served as a Producer on the Oscar-nominated, Dupont-winning short, THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM, and Executive Producer on the award-winning films SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL and PRIVATE VIOLENCE. She continues to work at Chicken & Egg Pictures as a Senior Creative Consultant. In 2007, Helfand received a United States Artist Fellowship. In 2016 she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch. In late 2018 she completed and launched COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE, a feature documentary for which she was awarded the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s 2019 Freedom of Expression Award. It was nationally broadcast on the PBS Independent Lens Series in February 2020, rebroadcast to commemorate the film's 25th anniversary. Helfand's newest feature LOVE & STUFF, inspired by the 2014 NYT Op-Doc of the same name, had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2020, and is currently on the film festival circuit.
Helfand is currently on a two-year visiting professorship at the Columbia Journalism School where she is teaching doc making to journalists. She does intensive training and moderation for Chicken & Egg Pictures' annual live pitch at the Sheffield Doc Festival/Market, The Athena Festival's Work-in-Progress Program and most recently China's CIENEX program.