LOVE & STUFF

USA, 2020, 80 min

Director: Judith Helfand

Producers: Judith Helfand, Hilla Medalia, Julie Parker Benello

Editors: David Cohen, Marina Katz

Cinematographer: Daniel B. Gold

Seven months after helping her terminally ill mother during the end of her life in home-hospice, filmmaker Judith Helfand becomes a "new old" single mother at 50. Overnight, she's pushed to deal with her stuff: 63 boxes of her parent's heirlooms overwhelming her office-turned-future-baby's room, the weight her mother had begged her to lose, and the reality of being a half century older than her daughter.

Judith Helfand is best known for her ability to take the dark worlds of chemical exposure, heedless corporate behavior and environmental injustice and make them personal, highly-charged and entertaining. Among her many films are the Sundance award-winning and two times Emmy nominated film Blue Vinyl and its Peabody Award-winning prequel A Healthy Baby Girl, as well as her global warming documentary Everything’s Cool. In 2009 she co-founded Working Films, one of the nation’s first non-profit dedicated to engagement, and in 2005, Chicken & Egg Pictures, a non-profit film fund dedicated to supporting women documentary directors with strategic grants and creative mentorship.

UP CLOSE Intro by Director Judith Helfand