On
the Road
November 2002
Highlights From the Past
Architects, designers, green builders and healthy building enthusiasts waving their tchotchkie during a standing room only screening of BLUE VINYL (organized by the Healthy Building Network & Working Films) during the 2002 US Green Building Council’s International Meeting, Austin, TX. On this very night the blue vinyl tchotchkies became the radical totems of a green building movement that rejects PVC as a "green" building material. Now that was a good use of used vinyl siding!!!
March 2003
Center For Social Media, American University
Judith Helfand, the maker of A Healthy Baby Girl
and co-director of Blue Vinyl and The Uprising of ‘34, shares strategies
and secrets for fundraising, interviewing, crafting and distributing films
that make a difference. Full
transcript of Judith Helfand’s presentation w/intro by Pat Aufderheide
2007
January 11-14
Curated first annual film series for Limmud New York
(Mega Cultural/Religious Study Conference for Jewish Community)
In G-d’s Image: You Me & Everyone We Know
From the Bar Mitzvah of a boy with Down Syndrome to a 40+ Chassidic man
who hides his cystic-fibrosis from his community; nose jobs and “perfect
thighs” to “Bubby never mentioned I was half black”
to 17-year-old “Sam” born with a bad case of the Jewish genetic
disease FD, a great sense of humor & radical notions about social-change
t.v. Buckle UP!
The curatorial goal was to bring together a provocative series of works-in-progress
and completed shorts, along with the directors, to creatively frame and
explore the hard communal questions of who is included & who is not.
February 1-3
11th Annual Documentary Happening, Duke Center for Documentary Studies,
Durham, North Carolina
Special screening of THE UPRISING OF ’34 (1995, 90 min) followed
by a conversation between Judith Helfand and George Stoney. This conversation
was videotaped to be used as raw material for a dvd extra in the future.
THE UPRISING OF ’34: FINDING HISTORY (THE INTERVIEW) with Judith
Helfand and George Stoney.
How does one conduct an interview focusing on a historical subject while
still retaining the immediacy and presence of movement that’s essential
to narrative storytelling? Using The Uprising of ’34 as a compelling
case study, Helfand and Stoney will present specific interview techniques
and engage in discussion with special guest Frank Beacham, the grandson
of the mill superintendent who gave the orders to “shoot to kill.”
They will focus on the individual and community relationships that make
up the essence of this compelling documentary.
March 7-11
Where Content Meets Intent sponsored by Working Films
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA)
North Adam’s, Mass
Co-instructor at an interactive five-day workshop for documentary filmmakers
designed to ensure that films-in-progress have deep and meaningful community
engagement and impact. Participants create specific, timely, and relevant
outreach and audience engagement plans for their films; identify community
partners; and map out support materials, effective timelines, budgets,
and implementation strategies. Additional work includes conceptual plans
for web sites, fundraising tactics, press strategies and the development
of evaluations focused on quantifiable outcomes.
March 12-13
Albany State University
Presented a “she-note” to kick off the launch of a documentary
studies department within the College of Arts and Sciences. Presentations
included a 3-hour interactive workshop and a lecture in the introduction
to Documentary Studies class.
Featured Presentation:
Serious Fun — Using Comedy, Irony and the Bittersweet Sides of Life,
Death, the Threat of Human Extinction, Chemical Exposure, Denial, Scientific
Uncertainty and a Seemingly Never Ending Supply of Corporate Cynicism
and Human Optimism to Make Documentaries Very Useful and Sometimes Very
Funny: A ‘How To’ Guide,” with Peabody award-winning
filmmaker Judith Helfand.
April 10
University of South Carolina
Informal meeting at the Green Quad Center for Sustainable Futures
Lunch: Discussion with faculty as part of the Green Pedagogy
Series (Topic: Using Documentary in classes -- showcase HBG/BV)
Afternoon: Discussion with students/faculty on strategies/impact
of
activist documentary — and screenings/critiques with production
class
Evening: screening of Everything's Cool as part of "Green
Action"
Film Series.
April 17 Brandeis University
Lecture followed by evening screening of “Everything's Cool”
April 25-26
University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Future Speaking/Teaching Engagements & Workshops
Fall 2007
Artist in Residence
University of Wisconsin at Madison
Special guest of the Nelson Institute
Green Screen
This is a survey class that will meet weekly in which I (a filmmaker)
will team-teach with another filmmaker (who will be at the school for
the month of October, Sarita Taggart (The Real Dirt on Farmer John) and
our host, anthropologist and historian Greg Mitman. We will teach and
explore what constitutes an environmental film? The goal is to break out
of the way in which we think of environmental film and to see how the
position of class, gender, and race and “activism” shapes
the way people think of what constitutes the environment as well as approaches
toward environmental issues. It will be loosely organized chronologically,
starting with the very beginnings of cinema and its origins in both science
and entertainment – first focused on people, then nature and animals
and then “everything else”. A number of strands and genres
have shaped how people think about the environment and environmental film:
the tradition of travelogue/expedition/natural history films (of which
Greg Mitman has written about extensively); social documentary (with its
roots in Grierson, among others); and ethnographic film…. Given
there is no unified environmental movement, how can we even speak about
environmental film as a recognizable category? This is our challenge…
should be fun and very interesting.
Non-Fiction “Environmental” Storytelling
in Pictures, Moving and Still
This production class is an opportunity to experiment with the
creation of “environmental films” using digital video and
still photography. We will work with mutually agreed upon themes as projects
and tackle them individually and collectively. We will experiment with
sound, image, the elements, humor, nature and the ever-difficult question:
just what is natural?
DRAFT CURRICULUM:
Project One:
TOXIC RELEASE INVENTORY in TWELVE PARTS
Project Two:
SATURDAY’S FARMER’S MARKET sun ‘up to sun down —
A series of shorts that together tells the time of day and the “nature”
of this place over time and from multiple points of view.
Project Three:
WHAT’S SO NATURAL ABOUT WISCONSIN? The class will be responsible
to produce six 1:30 minute trailers for the Tales From Planet Earth Film
Festival which will take place at UWM the first Weekend of November.
Project Four/Final Project:
Extend trailers into shorts; or if class chooses, aggregate
of all of the extended trailers into a group short. Either choice will
necessitate extending the story line, identifying interstitials and visual
themes etc. to short to create a longer more complete and final short
piece.
“Judith was the Distinguished Filmmaker in Residence at our festival at Ithaca College. We programmed a full retrospective of her work and every screening was packed with overflow crowds. Judith handled the Q and A sessions, often peppered with difficult questions about science and environmental issues, with clarity, equanimity and generosity. She poured her passion and guts into the theaters, inviting— no, politically organizing— the audience to join in a collective struggle to understand our personal stakes in the environment. She's a galvanizing presence. She ignited students in smaller master classes with her intelligence, experience, and deep grasp of the relationships between politically charged documentary and filmmaker's responsibilities to a world beyond themselves. Helfand doesn't just commit to making films that probe hard issues; she also does the hard work of organizing audiences and communities--from 200 seat theaters to small 15 person workshops of students--to ensure that the ideas in the films and the films themselves circulate. In these master classes she demonstrated that it's not enough to be an auteur, that filmmakers must also be political organizers in conversation with community. As she discussed her rough cut and shooting process for Everything’s Cool, she laid bare the documentary process as collaboration among many communities with visions beyond themselves, in conversation with the world.”
Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ph.D.
Professor of Cinema and Photography
Co-director, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival
“Judith Helfand is a dynamic, stirring teacher and presenter, who has inspired generations of students in individual classes and larger campus audiences at Brandeis to engage in critical environmental health and social justice issues. A Healthy Baby Girl, Blue Vinyl and early footage from Everything’s Cool, have been highly effective teaching tools for a wide range of topics including women’s health, toxic environmental exposure and global warming, to filmmaking, activism and social justice. Judith’s annual visits to campus over the years have served as rallying events, uniting the Brandeis and outside communities on these critical issues and stimulating extensive follow-up discussion and action.”
Dr. Laura Golden
Brandeis University