Many new disability-themed documentaries featured this fall
Disability has always been featured in documentary films but the focus seems to be growing with several high quality films making the film festival rounds this year.
At the Margaret Mead Film Festival at New York’s Museum of Natural History (Nov. 9-11, 2007), two disability films, which are already receiving much positive buzz, will be showing – “Autism: The Musical” and “Praying with Lior.” “Autism: The Musical” follows a woman’s journey to defy the stereotypes about autism by writing and directing a musical performed by children with autism, http://www.autismthemusical.com. “Praying with Lior” follows a boy with Down syndrome as he prepares for his bar mitzvah, http://www.dantrachtman.com/lior/.
And the film, “Darius Goes West,” has been making the film festival circuit in 2007, as well as a 14-city tour this fall. “Darius Weems, a 15-year-old with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, had never left his hometown of Athens, Georgia. In the summer of 2005, he and a group of young college students traveled across the country in a wheelchair-accessible RV to test accessibility in America. Their ultimate goal was to reach Los Angeles and convince MTV's hit show, ‘Pimp My Ride,’ to customize Darius's wheelchair. Along the way, they found joy, brotherhood, and the knowledge that life, even when imperfect, is always worth the ride,” http://dariusgoeswest.com/film.html.
And finally, an update on the subject of the 1999 Academy Award-winning documentary, “King Gimp,” is that its subject, artist Dan Keplinger, just received his MFA at Towson University. His MFA art exhibition, “Dan Keplinger: In Whose Words?” opened Oct. 4, 2007 at the Holtzman Gallery at the Center for Fine Arts at Towson University. Keplinger, who was born with cerebral palsy, says of his MFA exhibit: “I include images of my wheelchair and other objects that help me through life because they are a major part of my daily life. I morph these images of my body to create my own vocabulary. However, these pieces are about much more than my disability. Obstacles and challenges are a universal part of the human condition. We all face them in everyday life, although, we have a choice as to how to deal with them. Many of us are likely to get discouraged during difficult times in our lives. In my work I hope to show everybody that they have the ability to persevere,” http://wwwnew.towson.edu/centerforthearts/freeevents.htm. For additional information about Keplinger’s art, visit www.kinggimp.com.
Beth Haller, Towson University