Georgetown Green Film Series: COOKED

In COOKED: Survival By Zip Code, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand uses her signature serious-yet-quirky connect-the-dots style to take audiences from the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave — in which 739 mostly black, elderly, and poor Chicagoans died during the course of one week– deep into one of our nation’s biggest growth industries: disaster preparedness. Along the way, Helfand forges inextricable links between extreme weather, extreme disparity, and extreme racism, daring to ask: what if a zip code was just a routing number and not a life-or-death sentence?

The schedule of the online event is as follows:

• 6:00 pm CT – Film Screening
• 8:00 pm CT – Panel Discussion

You must RSVP to receive the links to watch the film and panel. COOKED is 81 minutes long. To ensure you finish the film in time for the panel, please start the film no later than 6:30 pm CT.

Panelists:

• Judith Helfand, Director and Producer of COOKED. Judith is an award-winning filmmaker, educator, field-explorer, and social entrepreneur. She co-founded Working Films, a national leader in linking non-fiction filmmaking to cutting edge activism. She has taught documentary filmmaking at NYU and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her films include A Healthy Baby Girl, Blue Vinyl, and Cooked: Survival by Zip Code.

• Dr. Amanda Masino, Chair of Natural Sciences and Associate Professor of Biology, Huston–Tillotson University. Amanda directs HT’s Environmental Justice academic program, co-founded and co-organizes HT’s annual environmental justice conference, the Building Green Justice Forum, mentors student group Green is the New Black and serves as Co-Director of the Dumpster Project, a K-12 environmental learning program.

• Raymond Mejia Jr., Emergency Management Specialist, City of Georgetown. Ray is a Senior Emergency Management and Homeland Security Specialist responsible to prepare the city and residents for all hazards, respond to and recover from disasters, and protecting critical assets, resources, and lives. He has 40 years of experience with international and domestic response, security and VIP protection, threat prevention, hazard mitigation, emergency preparedness and response, and disaster recovery.

• Madeline Waterhouse, Environmental Studies student, Southwestern University. Madeline is a senior Environmental Studies student at Southwestern University and has completed internships with the Colorado River Alliance in Austin and the Coastal Bend chapter of the Texas Surfrider Foundation. Her passion for environmental justice paired with the national social justice momentum in summer 2020 inspired her group capstone project: “Climate Vulnerability in a Carceral State.”

The Georgetown Green Film Series was established by the Southwestern University Office of Sustainability to bring awareness to the environmental crisis through the visual arts by presenting films with an environmental focus for free to Georgetown and neighboring communities. In addition to showing an environmental film, a panel of experts is invited to lead a proactive discussion with the audience about the topic at hand.

This event was made possible through a City of Georgetown Arts & Culture Board grant and Southwestern University’ Diversity Enrichment Fund.