Saturday, June 13, 2009

New documentary focuses on three generations of women dealing with learning disabilities

From Wicked Local Cambridge:


Cambridge — Sarah Entine is a first-time documentary film director and producer who worked on her film, “Read Me Differently,” for five years before completing it in May 2009. A private screening was held Thursday, June 11.

Entine graduated in 1990 from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where she attended the Pilot School, and still has strong ties to the local community. Originally diagnosed with dyslexia in 1978 while attending elementary school in Cambridge, she only fully comprehended the scope of her disability at age 29 after revisiting Mary Briggs, her elementary school tutor.

Her film highlights the caring yet strained relationships between three generations of women in her family. Two are afflicted with different forms of disability — dyslexia and AD/HD — and the other struggles to respond appropriately and with understanding to these challenges. With personal narration and a unique viewpoint, “Read Me Differently” shows the often-ineffective attempts by a daughter, her mother and her grandmother to communicate with one another and understand their differing points of view.

Entine spent her formative years in Cambridge and now lives in Berkeley, Calif. She attended the Cambridge Alternative Public School (C.A.P.S.), now known as Graham and Parks Alternative Public School, and attended the King Open School for seventh and eighth grades. Despite her dyslexia, she was a member of the National Honor Society at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. She graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, and the Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston.

Briggs, Entine’s elementary school tutor, will also be in attendance at the screening, along with several former teachers and classmates, as well as her mother, Jean Entine, a longtime Cambridge resident. Later this year Entine has been invited to show her film at several international conferences, including the 60th annual conference of the International Dyslexia Association to be held in Orlando, Fla.