Judith Dwan Hallet


Judith Dwan Hallet is an American documentary filmmaker.

Early life

Judith Dwan Hallet was born Judith Ann Dwan in 1941 in San Francisco, California. Her father, Robert Dwan, was a radio and television producer, director and writer including for You Bet Your Life starring Groucho Marx. Her mother, Lois Smith Dwan, was a restaurant critic for The Los Angeles Times.
Hallet graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where she specialized in filmmaking her senior year. While a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia teaching English as Second Language, Hallet co-directed her first hour-long documentary film in French on The Berber Villages of Southern Tunisia. After returning to the United States, she did graduate studies in film at The University of California, Los Angeles and married Stanley Ira Hallet, an architect and professor of architecture. Hallet moved to Salt Lake City where she made several short documentary films with her husband. In 1971, she received a Master of Arts degree in French from the University of Utah.

Filmmaking career

In 1971, Hallet's husband Stanley Hallet accepted a Fulbright lectureship to the Department of Architecture at Kabul University in Afghanistan. While there Hallet and her husband made two documentaries, The Painted Truck and The Nomads of Badakhshan. These films are still widely shown and have become classics for the Afghan Diaspora living in the United States and Europe because they depict Afghanistan before recent wars ravaged the country.
After returning from Afghanistan, Hallet accepted a job as a documentary filmmaker and producer/reporter for KUTV, the NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah. During her 14 years at KUTV, Hallet produced over 100 short films and 25 long form documentaries. The subjects were extremely varied and included the documentaries Buckaroos, Navajo Hopi Land Dispute, and A Very Special Dance.
After moving to Washington DC, Hallet worked for National Geographic Television’s weekly show, National Geographic Explorer, as the Senior Producer supervising over 60 documentaries as well as producing and directing four of her own including The Life and Legend of Jane Goodall, Gauchos, and El Dorado Gold.
After leaving National Geographic in 1991, Hallet produced and directed 17 hour-long documentary films through her own company, Judith Dwan Hallet Productions, Inc. Again her films were diverse from The American Buffalo Battling Back to Witness to Hope: The Life and Times of Pope John Paul II to Moby-Dick and Lords of the Garden.
Numerous newspaper and magazine articles describe and review Hallet's films.

Selected filmography

Hallet was producer and director of the following films, unless noted. Additional information about these films including the awards they received can be found at the Judith D. Hallet archives in the Special Collections of the J. Willard Marriott Library of the University of Utah.

1960s and 1970s films

Awards for specific films are in the Filmography section.
Hallet’s films and videos are archived at The University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections. Hallet's papers and journals are archived in the same Library.