Featured Profile: Julie Parker Benello

WDN member Julie Parker Benello is a Co-founder of Chicken & Egg Pictures, a hybrid organization that matches money and mentorship to support women filmmakers dedicated to using their storytelling skills to address the global justice issues of our time. The completed films include Freeheld, winner of the 2008 Academy Award for a documentary short and A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory, the winner of the 2007 Berlin Film Festival's Teddy Award and Best New York Documentary at Tribeca.

Julie has produced documentaries on health and environmental issues for more than a decade. In 2002, she co-produced the Sundance award-winning HBO documentary Blue Vinyl, co-directed by Judith Helfand and Daniel Gold. This project launched her collaboration with Helfand, who, along with Wendy Ettinger, are the founders of Chicken & Egg Pictures. Part detective story, part eco-activism doc and part rollicking comedy, Blue Vinyl was broadcast on HBO's America Undercover series, reaching over twelve million viewers and nominated for two Emmy's. It was recently featured on the Sundance Channel's new series, The Green and is still at the center of a rigorous grassroots organizing and education campaign.

Prior to Blue Vinyl, Julie produced the documentary Prostate Cancer: A Journey of Hope, which aired nationally on PBS in 1999. She has worked as a Production Executive for the Distribution Company Non Fiction Films and as a Researcher for Walter Cronkite's documentary series Cronkite Remembers.

Julie's commitment to the developing world, women's health and social-change media was forged when, fresh from Barnard College, she worked for the Population Council in Dakar, Senegal and later with the NGO Forum that ran concurrently with the 1994 United Nations Population and Development Conference in Cairo, Egypt.

She currently serves on the board of The Center for Environmental Health and Working Films and the advisory board of a family foundation.