Part family comedy and part horrifying investigative reportage, Blue Vinyl can make one simultaneously laugh and shiver with fear in the same, deceptively low-key moments. Documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand, upset that her parents are re-siding their house with blue vinyl, sets out (with co-director Daniel B. Gold) to discover how vinyl is made and why, according to some scientists, it is the most hazardous of synthetic materials.

Along the way, she meets industry representatives who tell her the key chemical ingredient in vinyl, chloride, is no more toxic than table salt. She also travels to Venice, Italy, to meet with families of vinyl factory workers dead or dying from chemical exposure, and she visits an intrepid, Louisiana attorney who has sued American vinyl manufacturers on behalf of severely injured former employees.

The tale is grim, yet the often on-screen Helfand’s approach is folksy and calm–less so when her skeptical parents reject, in several funny scenes, even empirical data about a product they find so… (Amazon)

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When director Judith Helfand (A Healthy Baby Girl) heard her parents were affixing blue vinyl siding to their house, she decided to find out how this product was created and disposed of. She and co-director Daniel B. Gold travel the world to point out how vinyl has caused numerous health problems. Included in their travels is a visit to Venice where businessmen who headed a vinyl company are on trial for manslaughter, and interviews with former employees of vinyl-producing factories who now suffer from cancer.

Blue Vinyl was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and aired as part of HBO’s America Undercover series… (Barnes & Noble)