‘The Peanut Butter Falcon’ star Zack Gottsagen inks talent deal with Kapital Entertainment

From Deadline:

Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment has signed a talent deal with Zack Gottsagen, the breakout star of The Peanut Butter Falcon. Under the pact, Kapital intends to develop a series-starring vehicle for Gottsagen, who made Oscar history this year as the first person with Down syndrome to present at the marquee awards show. 

The Peanut Butter Falcon marked the feature acting debut for Gottsagen, who had studied acting since he was a kid and worked as an usher at his local movie theater while pursuing his dream of becoming a movie star. 

Kaplan watched the movie, in which Gottsagen stars opposite Shia LaBeof and Dakota Johnson, with his family over the holiday break in December. Everyone was blown away by Gottsagen’s performance, leading to Kaplan’s decision to seek out the actor for a potential TV series. 

“I was so moved by Zack from the moment he was on screen,” Kaplan said. “His gentle, optimistic and authentic performance helped to make The Peanut Butter Falcon one of the best films of the year. I am honored that Zack is allowing me to be his partner.”

This marks the first talent deal for Kapital. It is not a business the indie studio plans to be in except for unique cases like Gottsagen. The actor will serve as producer on a show developed for him, which his manager, Joel Zadak, will executive produce through Artists First. 

Gottsagen’s role as aspiring wrestler Zak in the buddy comedy-drama The Peanut Butter Falcon has earned him accolades, including the Rising Star Award at the 2020 Palm Springs Film Festival and the 2020 Newcomer Award from the Hollywood Critics Association. The film, which premiered at South by Southwest, was a sleeper hit, pulling in over $20 million to become the highest-grossing indie film of 2019. 

Gottsagen’s agent is KMR’s Gail Williamson who represents a lot of actors with disabilities and has been a longtime advocate for actors with special needs. Both Williamson and Zadak have sons with Down syndrome. 

Additionally, Gottsagen is repped by attorney Priya Verma at Morris Yorn.

NBC’s ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’ enlists Deaf performers In April 5 episode for unique television musical experience

From Deadline: 

The new NBC Sunday night musical series Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which is about the title character, played by Jane Levy, who has the ability to hear the innermost thoughts of people around her in terms of  popular songs and big dance numbers, has been building a dedicated following and is a priority I am told when it comes to the network’s Emmy campaign plans. This coming Sunday’s special episode, “Zoey’s  Extraordinary Silence” ought to add to the buzz with a storyline involving the deaf community, and in particular a musical number produced in association with the Deaf West Theatre Company set to the Rachel Platten pop tune, “Fight Song”. You can see a featurette about the making of the episode by clicking the link above. 

The number takes place  in the deaf dorm on a college campus , and features the primary deaf character in the episode, Abigail, played by  Sandra Mae Frank who had performed in the Deaf West production of Spring Awakening in L.A. and on Broadway. The series’ choreographer, as well as a producer of it, Mandy Moore worked closely with Deaf West Artistic Director David Kurs in putting together the cast for the number, about ten of them coming from different regions of the U.S. to round out the versatile performers needed, all of them deaf and using American Sign Language. It was a unique challenge for Moore, who has had her share of them, including as choreographer of the Oscar-winning La La Land.  

In a phone conversation earlier this week she told me the idea to do the episode and the number came from the show’s creator Austin Winsberg, who was familiar with Deaf West in L.A. and had seen a bunch of shows there and was excited about the idea of bringing them into his series.  A lot of work went into it. “I realized very quickly that I was going to need to do some preproduction on my end, not only to make the routine, but also just to learn ASL because people think that dance and ASL go very beautifully together. I think ASL is so fluid and kind of looks like dance of the hands and stuff,”  she said while acknowledging part of the difficulty was in making a clear translation of “Fight Song” into American Sign Language, but also learning there really was about a hundred different ways it could be translated. a very tricky assignment. 

“And in that rehearsal process it was very telling. Holy smokes, everything I thought I knew I threw out as soon as I got in the room which was really beautiful, fun and scary, but very cool. And we worked for about three hours I think in that initial preproduction rehearsal, and it was trying not only to understand what signs we were going to do for what words, but also adding a bit of movement to it. So say you’re signing a certain word with your hands, but then you might stomp with your feet, or you might turn around 180 and turn the other direction. Funny enough, that can really take away from the beauty and the clarity of the ASL, so that communication and that understanding and that creation took a long time to figure out,” she said. 

Of course Moore, who is also an Emmy winner for So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With The Stars, has conquered challenging numbers before including staging that amazing opening musical number in La La Land set entirely in a traffic jam on a Los Angeles freeway, but this was different as she explained. “I think each number honestly has their challenges. I will say that this is probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done because you’re going into a situation where you don’t have the tools, like part of the tools you need to build a house you don’t have, you know? I just wanted to respect the language because I just didn’t want to make some stupid dance that just made a mockery of this beautiful language, right? It was really hard tonally just to figure out what was right and to make sure that all these performers felt trusted and heard in a way that they could express how they feel about something, because they’re all really incredible performers and actors, you know? And so, it was really interesting to hear them, which is so weird to say hear, but to listen to them, and to the translators and debate what was the correct sign for a certain emotion or certain word.” 

Moore is happy she was able to part of such a groundbreaking kind of performance on network television, a performance of a song but with no singing. From the beginning Winsberg was adamant that it would be done this way, without subtitles, even though Moore says some people may not get it, but that’s okay. “It’s very beautiful when you watch it and you feel it. You know I think you watch it and go like, wow, this is something I don’t really know anything about,” she says adding that it is really exciting and gratifying to not only be a choreographer of a weekly series with ever changing needs, but also becoming a producer on the show and getting in on the ground floor of decisions, being able to help guide and craft the musical content. 

“It is its own little unique thing. You know people watch it and they just go like, wait, what is this?, and then you’re somehow like drawn into it in a  kind of quirky, weird way. Obviously Jane is a superstar, like I just cannot say enough about her,” she said. “And I mean personally, I love the writing. That’s also why I was drawn to the project, because I love the writing, I love the idea that dance can live in a very different world in Zoey’s world, you know that it doesn’t have to be sequenced and turns and jumps and kicks, but it can be real-world people moving through a real space singing in a real way. I just think there’s something very unique about it. It’s a really beautiful show.”Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist airs Sundays on NBC.

How disabled activists are fighting isolation collectively in California's Bay Area

From In These Times. Photo: Yomi Wrong, who is participating in the Disability Justice Culture Club’s mutual aid network, sits outside her East Oakland home as Katie Loncke (back right) cleans Wrong’s cat’s litter box. (Brooke Anderson)

OAKLAND, Calif.—“I already disinfected the door handle, so come on in!” Yomi Wrong says. A rambunctious puppy eagerly eyes us through the gate. “Shiloh can’t wait to see you.”

As a healthcare compliance manager, Wrong is used to being out in the world—from going into her office to taking the dog for long strolls around Lake Chabot. All that changed when she began sheltering in place to lower her chances of contracting COVID-19.

“I’ve lost so much human connection,’’ Wrong says. “My sister lives in Alameda, but I haven’t seen her in over a month because she is immunocompromised. The two of you are the people I most consistently see.”

My friend Katie Loncke and I have been stopping by Wrong’s home every other day for the past three weeks as volunteers for a mutual aid project launched by the Disability Justice Culture Club (DJCC), a collective of five disabled and neurodivergent queer people of color in Oakland. Mutual aid projects like these aim to bring people together to help meet each other’s basic survival needs.

“Many of us don’t have support from our families—especially the queer elders who don’t have kids or [who] live by themselves,” says Jay Salazar, a DJCC member and a mutual aid network architect. “They carry so much knowledge and vision. Knowing these people are some of the most at risk pushes us to do this work.”

As coronavirus cases in the Bay Area increased in mid-March, DJCC began pairing people who were at higher risk, disabled or elderly with allies who could provide mutual aid during a shelter-in-place order. According to its sign-up form, DJCC “prioritizes [Black, Indigenous and people of color] who need to limit exposure to others because of health concerns.”

Members also made and distributed 100 anti-coronavirus kits to unhoused neighbors living in tent encampments. The kits included surgical masks, gloves, homemade scent-free hand sanitizer, and a vitamin mix.

Loncke and I connected through the network with Wrong, who welcomed the extra support after buying her first house, going through a difficult breakup and recovering from an illness. Between the two of us, we run Wrong’s dog Shiloh, scoop dog poop, empty her cat’s litter box, go with Wrong to get groceries, and do other tasks while maintaining six feet of distance and following other safety protocols.

This is about more than just helping to take out the trash, however. The three of us are—as DJCC puts it—“fighting isolation, collectively.”

“Our mutual aid is also a form of collective rebalancing, because we are prioritizing people that the government deems disposable,” Loncke says. “Officials are already talking about rationing care and withholding life-saving medical treatment from patients deemed high-risk of fatality. To us, this logic is flawed and deeply misguided. We choose to live in a way that truly values everyone.”

This isn’t DJCC’s first time mobilizing mutual aid practically overnight. In fall 2019, California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), implemented rolling blackouts, leaving millions without power in a widely criticized move aimed at preventing wildfires. Fearing that many in their community would be unable to power ventilators, recharge wheelchairs, or refrigerate insulin, DJCC pooled funds to buy generators and found accommodations outside the blackout zones for people who needed power. Similarly, when the Bay was blanketed in toxic wildfire smoke in fall 2018 and 2019, DJCC made do-it-yourself air filters, distributed masks and sealed up homes.

“We talk about the foundational principles behind disability justice and what it means to be in community and interdependent, we talk about it, we organize around it,” Wrong says. “But with the PG&E shutdown and now this global pandemic, I’m seeing it in action to ensure our community survives.” Disability justice principles, such as those articulated by the performance project Sins Invalid, include leaving no mind/body behind, centering the leadership of the most impacted, and committing to intersectional, cross-movement organizing.

The practice isn’t always easy, however. Salazar notes that many disabled people have not only “had to stop working, isolate ourselves, and worry about our families, but also worry about where to get our next meal. The physical and mental toll that takes on us is real. We shouldn’t have to do the work [of helping meet people’s basic needs] that elected officials—who, unlike us, are still getting paid every single day—should be doing.”

Still, many activists say that in a system not set up to meet everyone’s needs, help from elected officials won’t come fast enough or reach those who need it most. Instead, communities across the country are self-organizing. These bottom-up, hyperlocal solidarity networks often reveal the system’s failure to protect people, teach neighborhoods to self-organize, and permanently reshape social relationships.

“It’s an elegant way of supporting people—organic, grassroots, authentic, not rigid. It allows each person to show up as they are and contribute what they can and not be ashamed, on the need side or the giving side,” Wrong says. “It’s a beautiful spiritual exchange between people.”

Krista Vernoff, Shoshannah Stern break down bringing the first Deaf doctor to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

from Variety: 

When “Grey’s Anatomy” introduces Dr. Lauren Riley in its Feb. 13 episode, “Save the Last Dance for Me,” it marks more than just Shoshannah Stern’s (pictured) debut on the long-running drama: Dr. Riley is also the first recurring deaf doctor on a primetime network series. 

To tackle the groundbreaking character, Stern teamed up with “Grey’s Anatomy” showrunner Krista Vernoff, who initially didn’t realize this would be a historic first.“I didn’t know until we were on set shooting it,” Vernoff tells Variety, calling the vibe on set “electric.” “And that is the power of Shoshannah: I fell in love with her as a human, as a communicator, as an actress. I thought she was incredible and I wanted to put her on my show. I did not even know it had never been done before. That’s wild to me. And so to learn that on the day that she was working that this was the first deaf doctor who’s ever appeared on network television? How is that possible?” 

Stern met Vernoff on a 2019 Television Academy Foundation panel about representing disabilities in storytelling. “We just got to talking backstage, and she was talking about the lack of work, even though she’s put her own incredible show on the air,” Vernoff recalls. “And I was so smitten with her.” 

Vernoff suggested on the spot that Stern come play a doctor on “Grey’s Anatomy.” “I don’t know if I’ve ever invented a character because I fell in love with an actor,” Vernoff admits. 

The guest spot is also a literal dream come true for Stern, who had a recurring dream about being on the medical series a decade ago. “It was always just me walking around in scrubs with the other doctors like I was one of them,” Stern recalls. “I remember always having trouble adjusting when I woke up from these dreams, because they always felt so vividly real.” 

The first day on set felt almost dreamlike because she “felt super calm, like you do when you’re dreaming,” she explains. “Everyone was unbelievably welcoming and nice to the point that I kind of felt like I’d been there before. Members of the cast who I didn’t even have scenes with still went out of their way to come and say hello to me.” 

Prior to meeting Vernoff, the path to joining the show was bumpy, as Stern was let go by a manager a decade ago when they couldn’t understand why she declined to audition to play a patient on the hit drama. “It made no logical sense for me to turn down something real for something that wasn’t,” she says. “But something inside me was telling me not to.” 

Now, with Vernoff on her side, Stern was invited to the writers’ room to discuss coming on to the series, and the actress came prepped with her own research on deaf doctors. 

“I’ve always been fascinated with all the deaf doctors out there in the wild,” Stern says. “They’re all very different, but a commonality they share is that they seem to bring a special touch to their job. Some have actually invented medical technology to allow them more access, some of which you’re going to see in Riley’s episodes.” 

When Stern told the writers that deaf doctors traditionally make better diagnosticians than the average hearing doctor, the final pieces clicked into place. The writers then crafted a longer-term patient (Sarah Rafferty’s Suzanne), whose mysterious case would prompt DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) to call in outside assistance. 

Although Stern’s characters in the past have been primarily English-dominant (using a combination of lip-reading and Stern speaking) — and many deaf doctors also utilize that way of communicating — the collaboration with the writers led to taking Dr. Riley in a different direction. 

“For Riley, I really wanted her to sign,” Stern says. “She deals with people’s bodies, and you use your entire body to sign, so I just thought it would carry a special kind of weight. My deaf cousin [who is also named Lauren] is a nurse that uses an interpreter at work, and my husband does a lot of video relay interpreting in the medical field, so the inspiration for me for how Riley would communicate was cross-bred between my cousin and my husband.” 

Working with Vernoff, episode writer Tameson Duffy, and director Jesse Williams, the quartet utilized technology to allow for Riley’s interpreter to communicate via an iPad, which was used in scenes with multiple characters. However, when she was one-on-one with someone (and when there were mobility concerns about being tied to the video screen), Riley would switch to lip-reading and English with her new colleagues. 

“The team at ‘Grey’s’ also reached out to some deaf doctors on their own to ensure what they were writing about was accurate,” Stern says. “It was just an absolute spectacular example of the magic that collaboration can bring, and I’m so grateful to Krista and everyone at ‘Grey’s’ for their commitment to that.” 

 

In portraying this trailblazing character, “it was most important to me that Riley was the best at what she did because, not in spite, of the fact that she’s deaf,” Stern says. “It was also important that being deaf isn’t something that defines Riley, it just adds a unique layer to her. I loved how it was executed on the page, too, because Riley does eventually kind of touch on how her being deaf has actually helped her be as good as she is, but she’s kind of an enigma in that you never really know what she’s thinking or why she’s saying what she is.” 

Off-screen, “the response has just been so profound,” even before the episodes officially air, Stern admits. “I’ve gotten tweets from other deaf doctors and deaf people in the medical field. One mentioned that they dropped out of medical school because stuff like face masks prevented them from being able to read lips. I remember freaking out on the table in the OR when I had an emergency C-section because I understood nothing anyone was saying because of these face masks too. I think that’s why some people will drive hundreds of miles to where there is a deaf doctor so they can be understood.” 

Stern also relied on her cousin Lauren to help her with the medical signs on the show. “There aren’t even existing signs for a lot of the medical stuff, or really science based signs in general, because the incidence of it being used is so low,” she says. “That’s a huge detriment in deaf people’ access to science and medicine, but we have people working on that now. It’s such an incredible feat and hopefully the more it’s utilized, the more it will spread and become normalized because that will provide more access and understanding for deaf patients when they go to the doctor. I hope that people will see Riley and realize that it can be a reality for them, too. So hopefully ‘Grey’s’ can also change lives in that particular sense.” 

“Grey’s Anatomy” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.

Al Jazeera explores why disability clichés are so destructive for the community

You can watch the 25-minute report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLnSDa-OhPM&feature=youtu.be

"'Disabled people are lazy and just need to get off their self-indulgent butts and do some hard work.' That’s just one of eleven tropes on disability that author Cindy Baldwin [who has cystic fibrosis] listed in a Twitter thread exploring old-fashioned narratives of disability and how they make people with disabilities feel.

“'We are also so shaped with these narratives in a very ablest society and people don’t recognise these tropes are harmful. They have active real life connections to the way people are treated,' Baldwin told The Stream.

"In this episode, we will use Baldwin's Twitter thread as the basis for a discussion on how these tropes are used in the media, pop culture, literature, politics and more. And we will explore why accurate representation and authenticity are so important."

Also on the report were Lawrence Carter-Long, the Director of Communications for Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) and Maryangel Garcia-Ramos of the Mexican Women with Disabilities Movement (pictured).  

"Who Am I To Stop It," a documentary film on isolation, art, and transformation after brain injury directed by Cheryl Green, Cynthia Lopez

Reprint from the BMJ Medical Humanities blog:
https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humanities/2020/01/28/who-am-i-to-stop-it/

If you are interested in showing the film or hosting a screening, contact filmmaker Cheryl Green at New Day Films. 

Review by Karina Sturm, filmmaker and journalist

Who Am I To Stop It is a feature-length documentary portraying three artists in the US who live with brain injuries by following them through their lives and capturing the social challenges they face due to their disability. The film illustrates how they try to find their way back into a new life using art.

This review is written from the perspective of a disabled journalist who focuses on representing people with disabilities in media, and who has seen too many stereotypical portrayals of that community. Who Am I To Stop It is different in its accurate depiction of an invisible and misunderstood disability.

I watched the three short films that have been excerpted from the full-length documentary, featuring Kris, Brandon, and Dani. The fact that I live with a disability myself was not the primary reason why the films caught my attention; it was because of their engrossing narrative structure. The filmmakers thematized its subjects’ challenges without enforcing artificial emotional responses. This documentary is not about telling a sensational story or a beautiful recovery journey; it focuses on the here and now and shows how people with a disability can find a new identity and a sense of self.

The first story was Kris’s, an artist creating intricate paintings. People don’t realize that she has a brain injury. They see her as “the eccentric artist,” and she often feels misunderstood. “If I didn’t have the art, I would be suicidal.” For Kris, her art isn’t only a job; it is a coping mechanism that helps her to survive in a world filled with people doubting her disability. Kris’s story does not end with a heart-warming resolution like other films do, but with a hard truth that many disabled people have to face: Kris loses her apartment and gets evicted.

The second short film was Brandon’s, who is a singer. He experienced traumatic brain injury after his car was hit by a truck. Brandon made peace with his past and fights hard to regain his independence. Presented in a humorous way that helps the audience empathize with his tragic fate, he talks about the fact that he is not allowed to go anywhere alone until he manages to find the right bus stop, catch the right bus, and then get off the bus at the correct location three times in a row. When he finally managed to complete this task, he joyously says: “It has been magic.”

The third artist was Dani. She is the youngest, who struggles the most to accept her limitations. Following her pain and self-doubts was deeply shattering, because it reminded me of my own journey. She can’t quite find the right way to come to terms with her disability. “If I knew this would’ve been my life, I would’ve asked to die. I hate life,” she says. One crucial aspect of Dani’s story is the fact that her family have a totally different perspective. It’s hard for them to see her unhappy, when they are just glad that she survived the brain injury. In the end, Dani finds her voice by rapping in a place where she fits in: an LGBTQ organization.

The film tone and narrative make one assume that one or both filmmakers are disabled themselves because they know exactly the right questions to ask, and the people in the film feel comfortable to confide in them. The film protagonists were engaging, but without being emotionally manipulative. Moreover, Who Am I To Stop It is highly educational. Right from the beginning of Kris’s story, we see her in a doctor’s office, where she talks about her symptoms. The way Kris describes the effects of her brain injury immediately gave me a sense of what she had to deal with daily as a disabled person. I also appreciated the filmmakers providing closed captions and descriptive audio throughout the film. It is obvious that they had the disability community in mind when they produced those films.

In summary, all short films felt honest and real. They were short enough to keep my attention but long enough to provide the necessary information to understand and relate to its contributors. Who Am I To Stop It is one of a few films that accurately portray disabled people, and this alone makes it incredibly worthwhile.

Watch the trailer here.

Conflict of Interest statement from Karina Sturm:

As I was working on my own documentary film about living with EDS, another disabled media maker put me in touch with Cheryl. We have since formed a friendship discussing everything from Audio Description in film to ableism and the lack of disabled media makers telling our own stories. My review of her films was not a favor to Cheryl, but my honest opinion about Who Am I To Stop It as a fellow filmmaker and journalist.

Who Am I To Stop It is a fiscally-sponsored project of The Hollywood Theatre and is distributed by New Day Films.

Correspondence with the reviewer: https://www.karina-sturm.com/en/contact/

"Crip Camp," documentary on a summer camp that inspired disability rights, premieres at Sundance

From Berkeleyside:

The disability rights movement in Berkeley takes center stage on the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival in the film “Crip Camp,” a documentary that traces the infancy of the movement to a revolutionary summer camp tucked away in upstate New York. 

Directed by Bay Area filmmakers James “Jim” LeBrecht, a Berkeley resident, and the Emmy award-winning Nicole Newnham, the film premieres Thursday at the festival in Park City, Utah. It is one of the first films that Barack and Michelle Obama produced for Netflix. 

“Crip Camp,” tells the story of how a summer camp for disabled teenagers helped give birth to an important but sometimes overlooked civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, there was no federal law that prohibited discrimination against individuals with disabilities. 

Institutionalization was more common than it is today. But the teenagers who attended Camp Jened, a summer camp for teenagers and adults with disabilities, imagined a brighter future. A group of campers found community and camaraderie during their weeks in upstate New York in the 1970s, and Camp Jened served as an incubator for the disability rights movement. Many of the campers later moved out west to Berkeley, where the struggle for equal rights and representation was already well underway. 

“Berkeley as a city is the home of the disability rights movement so it makes perfect sense that this film would be coming out of the Bay Area,” says Berkeley City Councilwoman Susan Wengraf. 

“Crip Camp” director was a part of the movement 

LeBrecht, the founder of Berkeley Sound Artists, an audio post-production house, and the co-director of “Crip Camp,” was among the group of campers that landed in Berkeley in the 1970s. “Crip Camp” is told from the perspective of LeBrecht, whose long history of activism on the part of the disabled started in high school and carries through to today.

LeBrecht, who declined to talk to Berkeleyside ahead of the movie’s release on Netflix, was born with Spina Bifida, a condition that occurs when the spine and spinal cord don’t form properly and often results in restricted mobility. LeBrecht was born in an era where individuals with disabilities had limited, if no, options in terms of accessible living, workplaces, and transit. When he was a young child, he navigated the stairs of his split-level childhood home by crawling or climbing, he told SFGate. 

But LeBrecht’s parents didn’t want him to live a sheltered life and he worked hard to ensure his opportunities were not limited by his physical disability, he told the newspaper. He became active in the disability rights movement in his teens and helped start the Disabled Students Union at UC San Diego, according to Catapult Film Fund.
Lebrecht worked as Berkeley Repertory Theater’s resident sound designer for 10 years and worked in sound design at the Saul Zaentz Film Center and at Skywalker Ranch. 

LeBrecht has had immense success as a sound designer, with more than 179 film credits on IMDB.

“When I was growing up, people like Jim were institutionalized, they were shut out of society,” says Wengraf. “I’d love to meet Jim’s mother someday. She must be an extraordinary woman. She raised Jim with an enormous amount of self-confidence and the belief that he could do whatever he wanted. That was an extraordinary thing for the time. She was on the cusp of the disability rights movement.” 

LeBrecht is a former colleague of Wengraf’s husband, Academy Award-winning sound designer Mark Berger, and has known the family for many years. Similar to LeBrecht and Camp Jened campers, Wengraf told Berkeleyside that she came to Berkeley in 1969 on a mission to help children with disabilities express themselves through filmmaking and photography. 

“I think film is a powerful medium for telling any good story,” said Wengraf. “Film has the capacity to envelop you in an experience, unlike any other medium. I’m sure [“Crip Camp”] would be a good book but I think film is more effective at telling this kind of story.” 

The history of activism for disability rights in Berkeley 

By the time Wengraf and the activists from Camp Jened arrived in Berkeley in the 1970s, the struggle for equal rights for the disabled had already started. In 1962, Ed Roberts, the University of California Berkeley’s first student with severe physical disabilities, started a protest group called the Rolling Quads, whose activism helped establish the first Disabled Student’s Union on campus back in the 1960s. 

Ten years later, the work of activists such as Roberts, Hale Zuckas, and Jan McEwan Brown led to the opening of the Center for Independent Living, Inc. (CIL) in 1972, an organization dedicated to peer support and helping persons with disabilities lead independent lives. The CIL is still active today and is connected to the Ashby BART station at the Ed Roberts campus. 

Telling the story of the disability rights struggle 

“Crip Camp” might elevate the history of the disability rights movement, which is lesser-known in Berkeley than other protest movements born here. 

The film is included in the first slate of films being produced by Higher Ground Productions, the Obamas’ film company, which is devoted to telling the stories of civil rights pioneers. 

By recognizing a story about the struggle for disability rights alongside stories of other civil rights movements, Netflix and the Obamas are helping bring more awareness to this often overlooked and underrepresented movement, says contributor Sarah Kim in an editorial for Forbes. 

Wengraf expressed similar feelings, saying the support of Michelle and Barack Obama is an enormous honor, noting “…it’s kind of a dream for every documentary filmmaker to be acknowledged in this way and get this kind of boost, it’s phenomenal. This is a dream come true for Jim and everyone else who thinks this is an important story to be told.” 

Wengraf says she has a vision for a museum in Berkeley’s Civic Center that would have a wing devoted to the disability rights movement, alongside other important moments in Berkeley’s history. 

“I think this is a very important story to be told [and] it’s going to be up to us, it’s not necessarily our issue, it’s going to be up to us to bring it to the public realm,” says Wengraf. 

Netflix will be releasing “Crip Camp” in spring 2020.

"Everything's Gonna Be Okay" explores grief, love, autism, with autistic character played by autistic actor Kayla Cromer

From Teen Vogue:

Freeform's new comedy Everything's Gonna Be Okay is unconventionally hilarious. Set in California, the show explores how three siblings cope with the sudden loss of their father.

Nicolas, played by Australian actor Josh Thomas, steps up to be the father-figure of his two teenage half-sisters: an angsty Geneviene (Maeve Press) and Matilda (Kayla Cromer, pictured), who has autism.

The show screened for an intimate audience at Chicago's Davis Theater on Tuesday and was met with laughter and applause.

What sets the show apart from other family sitcoms is that it bluntly unpacks grief, sex, love, and independence in a darkly humorous way. It also makes history as the first show to ever cast an actor on the spectrum in a lead role. 

"Everyone that's been cast as a character with autism doesn't really have that disability themselves," Kayla, who plays the outspoken but kindhearted Matilda, says. "So how can they expect to act like one of us, when they haven't walked in our shoes?"

Previously a model, Kayla was one of the first actresses to audition for the role and landed it soon after. And while she's thrilled with the opportunity to give nuance to what it's like having autism, she's also well aware that there should be more representation on big and small screens of people with neurological disorders.

"I know there's always going to be people that won't like my performance and [others] will like it," she says. "But in reality, one character with autism can't represent every person with autism — everyone is different. We all have our different quirks. Not all of our brains are alike."

Read more about Cromer here. 

Everything's Gonna be Okay premieres Jan. 16, 2020 on Freeform.

Social anxiety family comedy, 'The Healing Powers Of Dude,' lands on Netflix January 13

From Romper:

Adding to its selection of wholesome shows for the entire family, Netflix is dropping a highly-anticipated new comedy about an 11-year-old boy with social anxiety disorder and his (talking!) emotional support dog. Thankfully, you won't have to wait much longer to catch this series, which is sure be a heartwarming story for kids and adults alike. In fact, Netflix shared The Healing Powers of Dude's release date exclusively with Romper and good news: it's right around the corner. 

The first eight episodes of The Healing Powers of Dude will land on Netflix on Jan. 13, 2020. Described as a live-action family comedy, the series centers on Noah, an 11-year-old boy with social anxiety disorder, as he transitions from homeschooling to middle school with the help of his emotional support dog Dude. Although he's described as a "sarcastic" mutt, it turns out that Dude (voiced by Steve Zahn from Diary of a Wimpy Kid and That Thing You Do!) might need Noah (played by Jace Chapman) just as much as Noah needs him.

Husband-and-wife team Sam Littenberg-Weisberg and Erica Spates co-created the series based on their personal experience with social anxiety disorder. While a comedy, the series touches on very real things, like how Noah's social anxiety can make what may seem like simple, everyday activities, feel like being submerged in quicksand.

So when Noah decides he wants to start at the local middle school after years of being homeschooled, his parents (played by Tom Everett Scott and Larisa Oleynick) bring home an emotional support dog to join him on his new journey. According to U.S. Service Animals, the official service and support animal registry, an emotional support animal's main role is to provide emotional support and comfort to their owner both throughout the day and in times of distress. 

Unfortunately, Dude isn't the most experienced emotional support dog and his short attention span and obsession with treats result in a number of comedic hijinks. Still, the dog's got charm and spunk, and ultimately, wants nothing but the best for his new best friend.

While kids will get a kick out of Dude, the show is likely to have parents laughing as well as it reunites Zahn with his That Thing You Do! co-star Everett Scott. "Tom is one of my oldest friends so it was inevitable that I would eventually play his dog," Zahn tells Romper. "In the next decade, my goal is to play his 'Aunt Hilda' or imaginary friend 'Larry.' Tom is absolutely hysterical in this show."

You and your family can catch The Healing Powers of Dude when it drops on Netflix on Jan. 13, 2020.

How 'This Is Us' discovered the blind actor who plays Kate and Toby's son

From ET online:

Warning: Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched September 24 season four premiere of This Is Us.

Meet Blake Stadnik (pictured), the newcomer playing Kate and Toby's grown-up son on This Is Us.

The fourth season of NBC's family drama kicked off on Tuesday with three seemingly disparate storylines introducing several new faces. There was Malik (When They See Us' Asante Blackk), a teenage father that Deja meets at a party in Philadelphia. There was Cassidy (Jennifer Morrison), a war vet at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where Nicky throws a chair through the window and gets arrested. And then there was a visually-impaired singer, who finds the love of his life (Auden Thornton), gets married and is expecting a baby.

But it's that last "new" character who has a direct connection to the Pearson family. As revealed in the closing minutes of the season opener, the singer turns out to be none other than Kate and Toby's adult son, Jack (Stadnik), named after Kate's late father. 

Creator Dan Fogelman shared that it was always the plan to have Jack, whose premature birth was explored last season, be blind. The decision wasn't made lightly. 

"We’ve always known for a while now that Kate’s son was going to be born prematurely and blindness retinopathy is a very common thing that would come from that. It wasn't a debate about what type of thing may or may not happen. It was always part of the character and the story that we were planning on telling," Fogelman told a handful of reporters, including ET, on Tuesday. "But certainly, music has always been a big part of this family's story generationally and it continues on down the line." 

So, who is the actor playing grown-up Jack? Stadnik is a theater actor who is legally blind. This Is Us, as Fogelman noted, is Stadnik's first on-screen credit ever. He is also one of the first visually-impaired actors to play a major character on a network television show.

The process in finding Stadnik for the character was laborious and long. Fogelman revealed that the casting department for This Is Us began scouring for the right actor during hiatus between seasons three and four.

"It was an interesting casting process because we wanted to cast a blind actor. We had started our casting process very early, even in our off-season. I was looking for a leading man who was without sight and who could be funny, charming, accessible and sweet," Fogelman told ET, adding that he was "worried" about it. "One of the wonderful things about our casting department was it wasn’t like they only found Blake. There were a bunch of really viable, wonderful casting choices that came through our casting department. Blake, when he came to us, was clearly the guy."

A veteran of musical theater, Stadnik has starred in productions of Newsies, Sweeney Todd, 42nd Street and up until recently, the Colorado-based show, Guys and Dolls.

"He was actually in a local production in Colorado that we had to get him out of in order to shoot the order, but he had never acted on camera before," Fogelman said. "We wanted to find an actor who could be a leading man and [was] very handsome and very funny and looked great with his bare abs on national television, but also be able to stand in the Greek [Theatre] in front of a live audience and actually perform and sing a song. There were a lot of boxes to check."

"Blake’s first day of shooting was literally walking completely naked in the bed and then having a six-hour makeout scene with a young woman opposite him and going up to the stage at the Greek in front of thousands of people during an intermission of a concert to perform," he marveled. "It was quite a trial by fire for him and he just blew us away in every possible way."

While This Is Us has already fast-forwarded to the future with a salt-and-peppered Randall and a bed-ridden Rebecca, the introduction of an adult Jack in season four moves the timeline several years after that moment. Fogelman confirmed that Kate and Toby's son would be about 12 years old, or "in his teens or pre-teens," in that period with Rebecca and the "her" mystery. "What you're seeing is about 10 years-plus after that," he revealed.

"When we talk about the endgame of that storyline that's already been established with 'her,' it's kind of where this story for our Pearson family -- the immediate family of the Big 3 -- and the family heads toward," Fogelman said, "but it doesn't mean it's the endgame in terms of timelines."

Though Fogelman remained coy about the next time we'll see Jack as an adult again, he teased that the character "will be returned to" this season.

"We're in love with the actor that we found. It's a difficult period to go to all the time because we're pretty deep into the future and it presents production challenges. We do plan on returning to it," he reaffirmed. "Right now, we're telling stories in the beginning half of the season that focus a little bit more on the present-day stories. But it is a place we're heading towards again multiple times, especially because we had a young man who was acting on camera for the first time in his entire life. Sometimes the parts get even bigger than you were planning on making them."

As for the new characters setting up the rest of the season, Fogelman promised that they are all people "who are going to have massive impacts on our main family's lives."

"They are massive parts of the season. They’re not just in a one-off episode as the person who was in the room when Nicky threw a chair in the window. Or to meet Deja at a party. It’s going to go far beyond that. It’s a slow build," he told ET. "Part of the intent here was to establish these characters so that you met them pure and outside of the purview of the Pearson family. Now you really are inside of these characters’ stories and now we slowly start building them into their world and see how they affect and really change their lives."

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.