Her father, Robert Dwan, was a radio and television producer, director and writer including for You Bet Your Life starring Groucho Marx (1947–1961).
[3] 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.
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.
[5][7][8][9] 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.
[7][10] 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 (on a tribe in Western Papua New Guinea).