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Drew Morton Goldsmith is no stranger to the art of filmmaking. In the
past six years he has already built a resume that would make any Tisch
student green around the gills: participation in more than 20
international film festivals with his film Treasure Diversity and awards from YouTube (at age 10, for the Sky’s the Limit contest) and the United Nations.
But it’s not the accolades that motivate Drew to continue his work.
As a fifteen year old with “significant disabilities,” Drew is
passionate about using filmmaking to open people’s hearts and expand
their minds.
Drew found inspiration in a challenging moment several years ago,
when his favorite English teacher, in a well-meaning gesture, told him
that she was going to make a donation to a certain Autism charity. As an
Autism self-advocate, Drew knew this charity to rely on what he calls
“pity-based marketing.”
He decided to use filmmaking as a means to expose this technique, and
to articulate the way it feels to be the person who is characterized as
pitiable for the sake of fundraising.
When Drew was accepted into the Project VoiceScape program, he was coming to the table with a rough cut of his documentary, No Pity. Drew has used his time with his mentor, Aaron Matthews (A Panther in Africa, My American Girls),
to expand the rough cut from its original format — entirely archival
footage — to include original footage Drew shot himself. “Aaron
encouraged me to give my film more of my own image — literally begin the
film with a sequence involving me. Aaron has also taught me about
leaving just a bit more on the editing room floor.”
“At each turn, Aaron reminded me that it was my work — I had the
final say — but he was there as a responsive sounding board. It was an
ideal working relationship.”
What is the most important message he wants his audience to take away from No Pity?
“[This is] a disabled teenager’s heartfelt appeal for respect and dignity,” says Drew. “Dignity always trumps pity.”
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.
