(free film showing of the documentary on May 8, 2004)

Blue Vinyl is a Toxic Comedy about vinyl siding. The film balances humor and horror, facts and anecdotes, and the face-off between cynicism and hope.

"Blue Vinyl" poses the question: "Is it possible to make products that never hurt anyone at any point of their life cycle -- when manufactured, when used, or when disposed of?"

With this reasonable question, director Judith Helfand turns her attention to her parents' modest, vinyl-sided home, where she attempts to convince her mother and father, Florence and Ted, to remove the vinyl siding, which is embossed to look like wood, from their house if she can find a safe and affordable alternative that fits in with the neighborhood.

Early in the film, Helfand, who readily admits that her last science class was tenth-grade biology, invites environmental experts from Greenpeace to her parents' vinyl-sided home in Long Island to give her and her dad a crash course on polyvinyl chloride - PVC. She soon augments her Greenpeace education with more revelations about vinyl from people such as Billy Bagget, an independent lawyer in Louisiana who has spent the last decade piecing together a conspiracy case against twenty-nine of the largest PVC-producing chemical companies in the world. From Bagget's office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the film travels to Venice, Italy, where thirty-one executives from a PVC-producing company are in the midst of a trial, personally accused of manslaughter in the deaths of their employees and for polluting the Venice Lagoon.

Vinyl is used as siding, flooring, fencing, roofing, piping, windows, carpet, conduit, insulation and wallpaper backing. Vinyl is also used for consumer articles such as office furniture, binders, and folders. It is used in the car industry, especially as underseal. Vinvyl is used in hospitals for medical disposables, as well as cable and wire insulation, and for imitation leather and garden furniture. Yet when vinyl burns, it releases potentially lethal toxic fumes and gases.

Through Helfand's detective work, she discovers a conspiracy by the vinyl industry to conceal its knowledge of highly harmful toxic byproducts affecting workers in the factory and the surrounding environment. The chemicals in vinyl plastic are known to cause cancer, disrupt the body's hormone systems, and damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems of all living things. Production of vinyl is increasing worldwide.

"Blue Vinyl," directed by Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold, is their second collaboration. Their first was the documentary "A Healthy Baby Girl," which won a Peabody Award for excellence in journalism and public education.

The film "Blue Vinyl" has won numerous awards including the Documentary Award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; First Prize Award for Best Documentary at the 2002 Bermuda International Film Festival; the Audience Award at the 2002 Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema; the Audience Award/Documentary at the 2002 Santa Cruz International Film Festival; Dwell Magazine's Nice Modernisits Award for 2002; and the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary, High Falls Films Festival, Rochester, New York. "Blue Vinyl" has also been nominated for two Emmy's: Best Documentary and Best Research.

People who are planning to build or remodel their homes, contractors who work with vinyl products, and all other individuals who are concerned about toxins in the environment are encouraged to attend this free film showing.

Additional information can be found at bluevinyl.org or by calling Oregon Toxics Alliance in Eugene at 541-465-8860.