Cooked: Survival by Zip Code

Filmmaker, activist and educator Judith Helfand is best known for her ability to take the dark, cynical worlds of chemical exposure and heedless corporate behavior and make them personal, resonant, highly charged, and entertaining. Her films, The Uprising of ’34 (co-directed with George Stoney), the Sundance-award-winning Blue Vinyl (co-directed with Daniel B. Gold and nominated for two Emmys), and its Peabody-award-winning prequel A Healthy Baby Girl (a five-year video-diary about her experience with DES-related cancer), explore home, class, corporate accountability, intergenerational relationships, and the ever shrinking border between what is personal and what is a critical part of the public record.

In addition to producing COOKED: Survival by Zip Code, Doremus co-produced the Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award winning, ABACUS: Small Enough to Jail for PBS’ Frontline series. Doremus got her start working as an Assistant Editor on HOOP DREAMS and went on to serve as staff Producer at Kartemquin Films for the next eight years. She Produced and Directed A YEAR ON TEEN ST, a short documentary broadcast locally on PBS, following a teen theater troupe over the course of a year and was Segment Producer/Co-Editor of the groundbreaking multi-part immigration series THE NEW AMERICANS, broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens and winner of multiple awards at festivals worldwide. Doremus lives in Chicago, is an active member of the Documentary Producers Association and serves on the Board of Kartemquin Films.