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From
The Vancouver Sun:
Among the thousands of spectators arriving in Vancouver this week for the start of the Paralympics is a Los-Angeles-based filmmaker who has become an unlikely champion of disabled athletes.
A veteran of California's entertainment industry, Steven C. Barber never thought he would make a movie about wheelchair athletes until a few years ago, when he had a casual chat with a man who occasionally repaired car brakes in Barber's parking garage.
In that 2007 chat, Geoff Erickson, who uses a wheelchair, told Barber he was going to compete in the world's longest wheelchair race.
Known as Sadler's Alaska Challenge, it is a gruelling 430 kilometres with an elevation change of 3,048 metres, from Fairbanks to Anchorage.
Intrigued, Barber tapped into his networks to raise money to help send Erickson's team to Alaska. Barber also decided to go along to make a marketing movie for Paul Mitchell Products, one of the biggest donors.
But he got more than he bargained for.
"When I got up there, I was like, 'I got a movie here.' The stories and the people; this stuff was unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was seeing through my viewfinder."
The documentary Unbeaten was born. The movie, produced in partnership with Polaris Media Group, follows 31 athletes -- people injured in shootings, falls and vehicle accidents -as they completed the course.
Barber said all were adrenalin junkies, which comes in handy when facing a mountain pass in Denali National Park with bleeding hands.
"This is an opportunity of these guys to feel whole again. It's the longest, hardest race in the world," Barber said. "They get a lot of adoration and support. It's about what they are achieving, not what they lost."
Barber was so intrigued with three of the athletes that he followed them to Beijing for the 2008 Paralympic Games. One, Oz Sanchez, was a former American marine paralysed in a motorcycle accident just before he was up for this third deployment to Iraq.
Sanchez was ranked 80th going into the Games and came out with a gold medal in the time trial, making him the world's fastest man on a hand-cycle.
Barber, who will be promoting his documentary while in Vancouver, is hoping for more of those kinds of stories for future projects.
"I am the lone voice for the Paralympian," Barber said. "There's so many stories to be told with these guys that nobody is telling."
Barber saw the power of these stories in Beijing as a blind runner completed a race while the spectators sang him Happy Birthday and an armless swimmer brought a wave of cheering from the crowds despite finishing long after the winner.
"We need to get rid of the word disabled," Barber said. "These people have ability. They don't have disability."
Barber said he believes in the power of Paralympic athletes to inspire others, especially those with disabilities.
"You don't have to be a Paralympic athlete. You don't have to win a gold medal, but you can accomplish anything you want to. Yeah, life did a number on you ... but look at these guys."
The journey from his garage to Alaska to Beijing to Vancouver has also transformed Barber.
"I am a lot more caring than I used to be. I stepped outside of myself to help someone and the whole world opened up."
Barber said he wants to see support grow for the disabled in advance of the 2012 Games in London.
"Nobody in America knows that there is a Paralympics going on because we don't promote it," Barber said, adding that Olympic athletes would be the perfect candidates to embrace and promote Paralympians.
From The Vancouver Sun:
