Producer- Judy Chaikin
Judy Chaikin is a graduate of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women and is best known for writing, producing and directing the Emmy nominated PBS documentary, Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist. In 2004 she received her second Emmy nomination for the documentary Building on a Dream. Recently she directed and co-wrote the short romantic-comedy film, Cotillion ’65, which appeared in over 40 film festivals, winning Best Short, Best Comedy, Best Director and Audience Choice Awards.
Judy was a Supervising Producer/ Director on the ABC series, FBI: The Untold Stories, Co-Producer of the CBS Movie Of The Week, Stolen Innocence, Writer/Director of the bi-lingual PBS documentary, Los Pastores and was named Best New Music Video Director by Billboard Magazine and won the Blue Ribbon at the American Educational Film and TV Festival for the docu-drama, Sojourner Truth:Ain’t I A Woman, featuring Julie Harris.
Among her other television directing credits are the pilot for Nickelodeon’s comedy series On The Television, starring George McGrath and Taylor Negron, Fox’s American Families, episodes of America’s Most Wanted and the NBC Specials, Too Good To Be True and The Horatio Alger Awards For seven years she ran her own video company, producing and directing industrial and educational projects for many clients including The Red Cross, Met Life, School Based Clinics and The Grammy’s.
Judy began her directing career in the theater with the political drama Woman Speak, starring Jane Fonda. Her other stage directing work includes the comedy improv company, The Groundlings, starring Lisa Kudrow, Julia Sweeney and Jon Lovitz, the musical, True Romances, at The Mark Taper Forum, starring Peter Riegert and Tom Skeritt, the All-Guild Commemoration, Hollywood Remembers The Blacklist, starring Billy Crystal, Kevin Spacey, Alfre Woodard, David Hyde Pearce and John Lithgow, Rose, at the Odyssey Theater starring Naomi Newman, and comedienne Annie Korzen’s one-woman show, Excuse Me I’m Talking, at the New Duke Theater in New York. Judy’s comedy script, Ai! Chilito, won first place in the Broad Comedy Screenplay competition.
Her current film, The Girls in the Band, a documentary about women jazz instrumentalists, has appeared in numerous Film and Jazz festivals winning six top Awards and receiving rave reviews, in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and the New York Times, where it was Critics Pick of the Week.
Judy is a current member of the Director’s Guild of America, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The Actors Studio and is a former Board Member of the Alliance of Women Directors (AWD) and the International Documentary Association (IDA).