A database of news and information about people with disabilities and disability issues...
Copyright statement: Unless otherwise stated, all posts on this blog continue to be the property of the original author/publication/Web site, which can be found via the link at the beginning of each post.
Vanguard Cinema has acquired "Tenderloin" for direct-to-DVD and digital distribution.
Written by Ned Miller and directed by Michael Anderson, the drama stars Kurt Yaeger (pictured) as a wounded Iraq War veteran who moves into the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, where his self-destructive drinking is interrupted by locals, including his son.
The film premiered in October at the Mill Valley (Calif.) Film Festival and is seeking a slot at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June.
"Tenderloin" is notable for its diversity; Yaeger is an amputee as a result of a motorcycle accident. According to performers unions SAG and AFTRA, the film is one of the most diverse features ever made, featuring black, Asian and Latina characters, plus several actors older than 60 and two transvestites.
As a performer with a disability, Yaeger has taken aim at breaking down barriers for disabled actors. More than 57 million Americans have a disability, but less than half of 1% of all words spoken on TV come from a disabled person.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
