With humor, hope and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director Daniel B. Gold travel from Helfand’s hometown to America’s vinyl manufacturing capital and beyond in search of answers about the nature of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Her parents’ decision to “re-side” their house with this seemingly benign cure-all for many suburban homes turns into a toxic odyssey with twists and turns. The aspiration to find an alternative building material that doesn’t harm anyone at any step of its life-cycle is the narrative line that connects the dots between the consumer, the PVC worker, and the residents who live across the street from the vinyl factory. The result is a humorous but sobering and uniquely personal exploration of the relationship between consumers and industry in this feature-length documentary which won the cinematography award in the documentary competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. “Enormously entertaining...a surprisingly lighthearted jaunt through Silkwood and Erin Brockovich terrain. Blue Vinyl compels like fiction entertainment and could easily become a Hollywood The Insider-esque expose.” (Scott Foundas, Variety) Co-directed and co-produced by Judith Helfand and Daniel Gold; shot by Daniel Gold, USA, 2001, 80 min.

Shown with the short film Columbia River Redux (Michael Annus, USA, 1999, 4 min), a lyrical look at the impact the damming of the Columbia River has had on the wild salmon run.

Cosponsored with the Yudowitz Center for Jewish Campus Life, Cornell Hillel, and the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Funded in part by a grant from the Cornell Council for the Arts.