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FOCUS Film Festival is pleased to announce the winners of the Third Annual Short Film Competition: FOCUS on Living with a Disability. The winning entries will be screened on October 14, at the Bell Memorial Union Auditorium in Chico, Calif. Meet the winning directors at a reception following the screening.
And the winners are….
Best of Festival: MOTHERSBANE (USA 2010, 11:30 minutes) (pictured) Writer-director, Producer: Jason Jakaitis A personal documentary that explores the filmmaker’s ambivalent relationship to his mother’s physical disabilities and chronicles his attempts to be at peace with her suffering and disfigurement. The film draws upon a variety of poetic evocations, including Super 8 re-creations of childhood memories, to express the love and anxiety, and the protectiveness and dread, that has defined Jason’s relationship with his mother. ($500 award sponsored by We Care A Lot Foundation)
Award of Excellence: A DIFFERENT COLOR BLUE (USA 2008, 3:59 minutes) Editor, Director, Cinematographer: Melanie Levy In a dusty art studio tucked away in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, artist Charles Curtis Blackwell pours over works of beauty and remarkable spirit. The film explores the redemptive power of art, an ability to find hope in the most unlikely of places, and the courage of an artist who refuses to turn away from the thing he loves most. ($300 award sponsored by Union Bank)
Merit Award: MY NAME IS SYDNEY (USA 2009, 16:53 minutes) Editor, Director, Cinematographer: Melanie Levy; Original Music: Joel Bravo Sydney Edmond is a sixteen-year-old girl living with Autism. Although she lives without the ability to speak, her lyrical writing invites us into a world where senses react differently, light flickers brilliantly, and music offers a gateway to connect with the people around us. ($200 sponsored by Parent Infant Programs)
Spirit of the Festival: WHEN I’M NOT ALONE (USA 2009, 21 minutes) Director/Producer: Rhianon Gutierrez; Editor: Zara Ahmed; Composer: Shohan Cagle The story of Sam Durbin, who was born female but raised as a male, experienced unspeakable abuse, never learned to read or write, and drifted in and out of institutions. Today, Sam is a published author and nationwide advocate for people with disabilities. ($300 sponsored by Richard C. Robertson in memory of Deborah L. Rowell)
Audience Pick: To be announced at the reception. ($100 award sponsored by Far Northern Regional Center)
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.
The Focus Film Festival press release:
