Creators-Directors of film "Drought," now on Amazon Prime, say authentic casting can happen in any production

In the picture, (L-R) Hannah Black, Owen Scheid, Megan Petersen and Drew Scheid in Drought. 

from MovieMaker.
By Drought filmmakers Megan Petersen and Hannah Black

Megan Petersen and Hannah Black are the creators-directors-producers of Drought, which was just released on Prime Video. Black wrote the script, and she and Petersen also act in the film. Drought is set in a small, southern, drought-ridden town in 1993, where Sam (Black) tries to find a better life for her brother Carl (Owen Scheid) who is on the autism spectrum and fascinated by weather. She decides to steal their mother’s ice-cream truck and chase a storm. 

Here are Petersen and Black describing some of the challenges they faced and overcame on the film.

On the surface, it may appear that our North Carolina-based film had everything going in its favor: We have Mark and Jay Duplass on as executive producers, for crying out loud. But when gearing up for production, we had a couple of assumed challenges, and then real challenges, that we never anticipated. We’ll give you our top three of each.

Assumed Challenge No. 1: Finding a stellar team outside major film markets will be tricky.
FALSE! We are proof it’s possible to make a movie where you live, and that it can even an advantage. After searching nationwide for both cast and crew, we teamed up with two incredible production companies in our town, Lighthouse Films and Brightermoon Entertainment. They led us to an extremely talented 11-person crew, many of whom were stepping into multiple roles they’d never done before. The cast was also all local to our town.

This was not because of budget or compromise. North Carolina breeds some talented, hardworking, and kind individuals and making this film was proof. Speaking of amazing local talent…

Assumed Challenge No. 2: Casting an actor on the autism spectrum will be hard.
Not a challenge! Period. End of story. Anyone telling you different is lying or to put it quite bluntly… they didn’t even try. If there was anything challenging about casting the role of Carl authentically, it was that there were so many talented autistic actors that we had more choices than we knew what to do with.

Assumed Challenge No. 3: You can’t create a convincing period piece on a micro budget.
Sleepy southern towns are stuck in time y’all! A grocery with manual registers, check. An ice cream truck from the early ’90s, check. What made it all convincing was our Art Dept, Set Decorator, Props, and Editor, Parrish Stikeleather, a talented director and writer who happens to also be good at everything. His eye for detail and complete understanding of the script made Drought seem perfectly ’90s in the South. What else does the South bring? Summer heat. Yes, heat is tough. Especially when it is 105 degrees and nine people are filming in an old ice cream truck with no air conditioning. However, it added to the authenticity and gave it the real southern summer feeling we were wanting.

Well. With all these assumed challenges proving less difficult than we expected, the rest must have been really easy, yeah?

Cue the real challenges!

Real Challenge No. 1: Wearing a lot, like a lot, a lot, of hats on our first feature.
How does one act in an important emotional scene while seeing the grip truck stuck in sand or knowing a real storm is headed your way? To be honest, we look back and don’t know how our brains didn’t explode. A particular challenge was acting in scenes while pushing aside all other tasks that needed to be taken care of. We learned that it all comes down to trust. But how do you get trust? Well, you put together an amazing team. It was important not only for us as actors, but also directors, to trust in our team so we could be present in each scene. When you have an amazing team (see Assumed Challenge No. 1), this real challenge becomes much easier to handle.

Real Challenge No. 2: Life goes on. So does death.
Spoiler alert: The world continues spinning when you are shooting your movie. Who knew?! This means that things can happen. Like, really serious, Debbie Downer, soul crushing shit. There is no sugar coating this challenge. On Day 6 of production, Megan got the worst call anyone can get, receiving the news that her mother had passed away. We could get into the really tough decisions Megan had to make (trust us, you can’t even imagine) or the difficult calls that Hannah had to decipher making while wanting to be there for her best friend, but that could be a whole story of its own. The reality is, it was hard. Maybe the hardest moment during the making of this whole movie. Enter our perfectly wonderful and empathetic crew to save the day again. Their support, kindness, and belief in the movie kept the train rolling. Megan took time away while the rest of the team kept moving. When she came back to set, everyone was there with open arms and kept a keen watch on her through the rest of the shoot. In turn, she showed strength and grace that was out of this world. That was the day we all became family.

Real Challenge No. 3: Hurricane. Just when we thought we’d made it through the hardest thing a production could handle, a big, fat category 4 hurricane was headed straight for our town. One of the hardest challenges in any step of filmmaking is losing momentum. We were 12 days into an 18-day shoot and had to make the gut-wrenching call to stop production. The hurricane had a devastating hit on our town and surrounding areas. We were not sure if our locations were even still standing after the storm. The big lingering question mark was, were we going to finish this movie? Since you’re reading this, the answer is “Yes,” but at the time, we truly did not know what the future would hold. After a scene rewrite, cast and crew scheduling Tetris, and a two-month pause, our team came back together to finish out the movie in 44 degree weather; a vast difference from 105. But we did it! Once again, this rockstar cast and crew from NC prevailed!

At this point, we had a movie! A real life movie! We entered into festivals and…we got in!!! They were traveling us out to these festivals?! They were booking us hotels and throwing us parties and networking events and connecting us to audiences!!! We had arrived to the indie filmmaker’s big time!!!! Then…

Bonus Real Challenge: A global pandemic.
The difference here is we all went through this one together. Our sold out World Premiere at our home state RiverRun International Film Festival was cancelled and our festival run was looking quite different than we expected. However, we learned about digital marketing, networking with filmmakers across the country thanks to Zoom, and felt close to the amazing festival professionals, since we all had to work together to make it a success.

Maybe the coolest thing that happened was having our film play at the drive-in at our hometown festival, Cucalorus. Our cast & crew and folks from our amazing community filled every parking lot space in Wilmington, North Carolina, and there, we finally got to see our work on the big screen. All the challenges faded away as the car horns started honking with the roll of the credits. A moment we will never forget.

While this may seem like a cautionary tale of why to never make a movie, it is in fact the opposite. It’s why you can and should make your film despite any curveball thrown your way. The theme of our film’s story is that “there is no such thing as normal.” We guess you could say it also applies to the making of this movie, and all movies really. Normal doesn’t exist. There isn’t one path to take. So, if you have a story, please tell it. Find your path, gather your team, keep pressing through, and, as cheesy as it sounds, don’t give up, even when it gets really hard. The world needs to hear your voice too.

Megan Petersen and Hannah Black’s Drought is now available for rent or purchase exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

 

Why ‘Crip Camp’ deserves to win the Oscar for Best Documentary

By Kristen Lopez at IndieWire:

I spend a lot of my time talking about the state of disability representation in media. It’s never been a good time to be disabled, and movies and television have only perpetuated the belief that our lives are sad, broken, and fodder for able-bodied inspiration. I’ve prefaced my answer to the question, “What’s the best disabled movie?” with “Well, nothing’s perfect but….” for years.

That all changed when I watched Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham’s “Crip Camp.” There are two competing storylines within the Netflix documentary. The first is about Camp Jened, a summer camp in the Catskills. Full disclosure: I never got the opportunity to go to summer camp and I’ve been bummed ever since. My parents knew nothing about summer camps for the disabled when I was growing up, and even if they had, as first-time parents of a disabled child they lacked the confidence to send me out on such a voyage to the unknown.

In one key moment in “Crip Camp,” the kids talk about the assumptions their families make about them. Really, the entire documentary focuses on breaking down assumptions about those with disabilities. These kids are perceived to be perpetual virgins, to be dumb, to be otherwise lesser-than. Their parents care, but these kids know their parents underestimate them. I love my parents, but we’ve had our fair share of discussions about the regrets I’ve had through life feeling like they didn’t encourage me. Hearing these teens talk so frank, it showed what I’d been missing being the only disabled girl in my bubble.

More importantly, “Crip Camp” is the story of how Camp Jened galvanized these kids to become activists for the Disabled Rights Movement. Their time at this camp, feeling the true freedom and equality they didn’t find at home, caused them to understand that they (and by extension all of us with disabilities) have the power to ask for more than what we get.

Some viewers might balk at the subject matter of “Crip Camp” as too didactic or dour. But let’s be honest here: That’s the ableism talking. For too long, disabled narratives have been presented as sad and educational because, again, our lives are generally shown through the prism of being sad and educational. That’s not what “Crip Camp” does. Instead, it shows what disabled narratives can be.

In an interview last year with Newnham and LeBrecht, the latter discussed how he saw this film as “a golden opportunity” to finally tell the type of disabled stories he’d always wanted. LeBrecht wanted to tell a story about his time at Jened, a place where he found liberation, joy, and a sense of normalcy outside of his home. Newnham said she’d watched LeBrecht “spend a lot of his time and energy as an advocate for better representation for people with disabilities,” especially disabled filmmakers, so when he brought up his time at Camp Jened it seemed, for LeBrecht especially, “like a golden opportunity.”

The problem is, because the disabled landscape on film and TV remains heavily skewed towards white men, and disabilities remain aesthetically relatable to the able-bodied, “Crip Camp” challenges all of those assumptions. These kids at Camp Jened aren’t just talking about sex or having a crabs outbreak — summer fun for the average kid, amiright? — they’re doing it and not being conventionally attractive. Disability remains so stigmatized because people aren’t used to seeing disability as it is.

An able-bodied, proportionate woman sitting down in a wheelchair is not the same as someone with brittle bone disease in a wheelchair, or someone who is quadriplegic. Seeing someone with polio or spina bifida talking about sex, there’s an immediate shock from the able-bodied audience because they’ve never interacted with a person who has that disability, let alone hear about their sex life. If disabled people were shown in all different forms, as they are in “Crip Camp,” that shock would disappear.

When the pandemic first started, I saw it as an opportunity to confront the systemic inequalities that keep disabled people feeling like they aren’t part of society. If the last year has had anything passing for a silver lining, it’s that aspects of daily life that people with disabilities have long wanted to happen finally did.

“Crip Camp” brings a similar reckoning. If it won the Best Documentary Feature, that would be a clear example of what disabled audiences want to see. To reward its success would prove, once again, that there is a way to make disabled stories fun and accessible to everyone.

This year’s Academy Awards ceremony is poised to make history on a few fronts, from Best Director frontunner Chloé Zhao’s win to the possibility of Viola Davis being the second Black woman to win Best Actress. But if “Crip Camp” wins, it will represent another groundbreaking achievement — LeBrecht would be the first disabled director to win an Oscar — and it would be just as significant.

Singer with disability shines in Broadway star Ali Stroker's new kids book

 

From The Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway star Ali Stroker says she always felt like her "most powerful self" when onstage, and now as the co-author of a new book for kids, she's trying to empower others.

Stroker teamed up with her friend and middle grade author Stacy Davidowitz and set out to create a familiar character: a young girl in a wheelchair named Nat who wants to perform in a local musical.

"The Chance to Fly" — published this week — was a way for the actor to share her own experiences as a person with a disability and big dreams. Stroker, who has used a wheelchair since a car accident paralyzed her when she was 2, says she wanted to help kids with disabilities recognize themselves in the book.

Even before winning a Tony in 2019 for her role in the Broadway revival of "Oklahoma," Stroker served as an example of a person who doesn't let limitations prevent her from achieving her goals. She made history as the first actor in a wheelchair to win the award and dedicated it to all kids with disabilities waiting to be represented in theater.

Stroker said she was driven to write "The Chance to Fly" because she didn't have any stories like it to read when she was in middle school. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Stroker talked about the challenges of writing a story similar to her own, representing people with disabilities, and naming her wheelchair.

AP: Nat loves musicals and performing. How did performing make you feel at her age?

Stroker: On stage, I felt like I was my most powerful self because people were looking at me and staring at me. But it wasn't just because of my wheelchair and it was a safe place to be different kinds of people. For a long time, I felt like I had to be, you know, like happy and OK and inspirational for other people. And when I was on stage and I was playing a character who was going through something, I got to express all those other things that were living inside of me. Writing this book as well and going back to those really vulnerable, scary, first time moments was so healing. And I think teenage Ali was just really brave and really tough. And I feel so proud of where I am now.

AP: Nat sometimes feels embarrassed about her wheelchair. Was it hard to write about that?

Stroker: It was a challenge for me to go back to those moments. One of the ways I describe it is just like you feel like you're like so hot and you feel like people are looking at you for the thing that you are most self-conscious of, and maybe the thing that you have the most shame about. And it's just overwhelming. But I wanted to write it because whether you have a disability or you're in a wheelchair or not, you have those self-conscious and really difficult moments in your life, especially as a teenager, when you just want to be like everybody else, but you're not like everybody else. And the reason it needed to exist in this book is because I want young people to know that they're not alone in feeling like that.

AP: The adult directors of the show cast Nat but tell her she doesn't have to dance, which upsets her because doesn't want special treatment. Why was that important to include?

Stroker: What's so beautiful about living with a disability is that your creativity to solve problems is so accessible. It's so heightened because this is a part of your everyday life. Nat is really disappointed, but then she goes away and she shares with her friends, her peers what's going on, and then they offer to help her and they are going to not wait for the adults to solve the problem, but they are going to come up with the answer. That's an ideal situation when you can ask your home team, the people that you trust the most for help, and then you can come up with a creative solution.

AP: There are more opportunities recently for stories about people with disabilities. Is that encouraging?

Stroker: I really believe that one of the shifts that needs to happen is that actors with disabilities are cast in roles where the storyline is not about disability and that we are able to just exist in stories and have disabilities and have that not be the storyline. Because that's one of the ways in which I believe some of the change can happen. I think that we are in a diversity movement, but oftentimes disability is not included in that movement because there is an opinion that in order for disability to be included, it has to be addressed. And I am here to say that you can cast somebody — like what happened with "Oklahoma." I can play Ado Annie — my wheelchair is never addressed in the entire show. And yet we get to live this experience with a character who has a disability and we get to watch it and we are there with it, but we don't have to talk about it.

AP: Nat names her wheelchair Peaches. Have you named your chairs?

Stroker: It's just this really beautiful way to personalize this thing. You know, my wheelchair is a part of my every moment, every day my wheelchair sits right next to my bed when I sleep. My wheelchair is my access to the world. And I like to have a good relationship with my chairs. And so a really fun way of doing that is for me to name them. And sometimes there are days that you just want to use those names instead of talking about your equipment. My last chair was Twilight Flake — that was her racing name. She had sparkles!

SXSW Review: "Best Summer Ever," the first film with a fully integrated cast and crew of people with and without disabilities

From Flixist: 

Part Grease, part High School Musical, Best Summer Ever is a musical taking on the high school genre with a fully-integrated cast of people with and without disabilities. The conversation around inclusion, disability, and representation in Hollywood needs to be changed — starting with creating inclusive films. From that standpoint, it’s a pioneering production and a really wild ride.

Best Summer Ever
Director: Michael Parks Randa and Lauren Smitelli
Release date: March 18, 2021 (SXSW)
Rating: Not yet rated

Best Summer Ever is a lot of fun, full of actors and young people who are all so talented. I’m glad that the storyline hasn’t been specifically diluted for people with disabilities: the writers’ goal is to treat the film like a traditional high school story where everyone is equal and the storyline isn’t contrived specifically around disabilities. It’s presented with closed captions for accessibility and the film is wholly inclusive in its cast and crew.

The plot’s driven by the usual hallmarks of the genre: Anthony (Ricky Wilson Jr.) is a popular quarterback hiding the fact that he spent the summer at dance camp, and he meets Sage (Shannon DeVido), a girl who is always on the move with her family. The highest-stakes part of the film is that Tony might get exposed as a dancer to his high school, when the entire school seems to count on him to win this year’s football season, breaking a 25-year losing streak for the team.

There’s a really bizarre storyline in which Sage’s two mothers grow cannabis for medicinal use, so they’re always on the move, traveling around the country seeking out the next growing season. It has a lot to do with their very anti-establishment philosophy and it seems to ring true throughout the entire film, affecting each of the characters. 

True to the genre, it can feel a bit cliched at times, but it’s all part of the fun. The rival cheerleader Beth (Madeline Rhodes) is brilliantly over-zealous, stringing along with a group of followers who do her bidding. A plot unfolds beneath the subplot of the teen romance, as Beth sets out to sabotage Sage’s new life. She’s no match, though, for the pair of savvy teens and their plan to confound everyone’s expectations of them.

If the plot felt contrived at times, I couldn’t have predicted the madness of the ending. It took a turn I didn’t expect and gave villains their comeuppance, meting out justice with plenty of slapstick comedy. A special mention has to go to Emily Kranking who plays Nancy, Sage’s first friend in her new town, and the actor responsible for some of the best comedic delivery of the film.

In the end, Tony reconciles two of his passions – football and dance – with a little help from Sage. And the finale is an explosive, show-stopping number that rounds everything up just as you’d hope. There’s a bonus end-credit sequence showing the cast and crew in rehearsals, and not only is it representative, it’s clear they’re having a blast. Best Summer Ever is a fun, heartwarming, and inclusive film for this year’s festival, the likes of which we need to see more of in Hollywood. 

The New York Times, National Center on Disability and Journalism partner to enhance coverage of disability issues

 

By Kasey Brammell, NCDJ

The National Center on Disability and Journalism at Arizona State University is partnering with The New York Times to create a new fellowship program to enhance coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities.

The program, to launch later this year, will place an early-career journalist in The Times newsroom each year for the next two years to develop expertise and report on a range of disability issues. It is set to be funded by philanthropy.

The fellow will be part of a larger fellowship cohort at The Times and will receive mentoring from both a Times’ staff member with expertise in covering disabilities and the NCDJ, which provides support and advice to journalists around the world who cover such issues. The NCDJ also will provide training to the Times’ newsroom.

Nearly one in five people in the United States lives with a disability, but these issues are undercovered, said Ted Kim, director of Early Career Journalism Strategy and Recruiting for The New York Times. “Few avenues exist to develop journalistic expertise on disability issues because such beats do not exist at most news outlets,” he said. “The lack of coverage, in turn, results in a lack of awareness about issues that affect a large portion of the country.”

Kristin Gilger, interim dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU and director of the NCDJ, echoed the need for more and better coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities. “This fellowship program is an important step in the right direction at one of the nation’s top media institutions,” she said.

The application is now open for the first fellow, who will join The Times in June. Preference will be given to promising early-career journalists who also have experience living with a disability or who have developed a deep understanding of disability through the experiences of a family member or loved one. The deadline to submit an application is 5 p.m., New York Time, on March 31, 2021. Applicants are advised to submit well before the deadline.

The fellows will be part of The New York Times Fellowship program , a talent pipeline initiative started in 2019 to seed and diversify the next generation of journalists in local newsrooms across America. It trains journalists in reporting, audio, visual and other disciplines.

The National Center on Disability and Journalism is a service of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU. For the past 12 years at Cronkite, the center has provided support and training for journalists and other communications professionals with the goal of improving media coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities.

Slamdance Film Festival's new 2021 Unstoppable program of films features 22 films with disabled actors, filmmakers, disability themes

 From the Slamdance Film Festival:

The Slamdance Film Festival's new 2021 program, Unstoppable, features 22 short films from up and coming disabled filmmakers, feature actors with disabilities, or highlight the conversation of disabilities in today’s world. 

The online Festival runs Feb. 12-25.

Unstoppable is entirely programmed by disabled artists and the program’s mission is to amplify the contributions of the disabled community and advocate for their rightful inclusion in our industry. 

As an organization known for giving voice to talented creators whose stories otherwise might not be discovered, it’s in Slamdance’s DNA to undertake this new purpose.

“I’m honored to be part of the wonderful Unstoppable team and embrace the idea of creating a safe space for filmmakers with disabilities and take our creativity as seriously as everyone else in this industry. I feel like we are building a bridge for others to cross and I am so proud to be a part of it,“ said Unstoppable programmer Juliet Romeo.

Presented by Hulu, the Unstoppable online short film showcase of creators with disabilities is available on the Slamdance YouTube channel.

UNSTOPPABLE SHORTS:

A$$ Level (USA)
Director: Alison Becker / Screenwriter: Santina Muha
A$$ Level is a comedic music video that celebrates life with a disability while paying homage to 90s dance videos.
Cast: Santina Muha, Lydia Hearst, Travis Coles, Amy Hessler

Best Friend (United States)
Director / Screenwriter: Cory Reeder
After moving cross-country, a young girl with Down syndrome struggles to fit into her new surroundings.
Cast: Gitane Neil, Kim Kendall, Robert Buscemi, Diana Elizabeth Jordan

Committed (United States)
Directors: Rachel Handler and Crystal Arnette – Screenwriters: Kara Moulter, Rachel Handler, Melanie Waldman
When Calvin announces that he’s proposing to Leesa…and then they’re moving to the suburbs, Rebecca enlists Dennis’s help to sabotage the proposal and keep their friends around for good.
Cast: Rachel Handler, Jaleesa Graham, Colin Buckingham, Damond McFarland

ENDOMIC (Canada, US) World Premiere
Directors / Screenwriters / Producers: Camille Hollett-French, Ipek Ensari
An exhaustive meta-analytic review documenting a mysterious “women’s” issue, otherwise known as endometriosis¹ (¹term used to describe a clinical etiology that thus far has only been identified in primates with a female reproductive system, an anatomical structure of decidedly lower importance in comparison to those of the male primate.)
Cast: AJ Simmons, Ipek Ensari, Rhiannon Collett, Natasha Richards

Feeling Through (USA)
Director / Screenwriter: Doug Roland
A teen-in-need’s reluctant act of kindness toward a DeafBlind man becomes a night-long journey, creating a bond between them that gives the teen hope for the future.
Cast: Steven Prescod, Robert Tarango

Flying Eggs (United States)
Director: Sheldon Chau – Screenwriter: Antonio Garcia Jr.
A teenage boy in a Brooklyn apartment interrupts a man on his morning run by throwing eggs out the window.
Cast: Antonio Garcia Jr., Christopher M. Lopes

Full Picture (USA) World Premiere
Director: Jacob Reed – Screenwriters: Santina Muha, Jacob Reed, Elizabeth Reichelt, Stephen Sanow
Santina has been in a wheelchair since she was six years old. With meetings, hangouts, and classes happening virtually due to the Coronavirus quarantine, she’s experiencing something new: Choosing when (or if) to disclose her disability.
Cast: Santina Muha

Human Helper (United States)
Director / Screenwriter: Shaina Ghuraya
Human Helper is a sci-fi comedy short about a doctor’s mission to make artificially intelligent human-like helpers not ableist.
Cast: Nicole Evans, Alora Kinley, Anthony Golden Jr., Shauna Turnmire

How Much Am I Worth? (United States)
Directors: Rachel Handler and Catriona Rubenis-Stevens
This stirring documentary explores the failures of the U.S. health system through the lens of four disabled women.
Cast: Rachel Handler, Andrea Dalzell, Jaleesa Graham, Denise Castelli

I Wish I Never (USA)
Director / Screenwriter: Shaina Ghuraya
This music video tackles the reality of women with disabilities in abusive relationships.
Cast: Angela Rockwood, Lucas Maschi

My Layers (Canada) World Premiere
Director / Screenwriter / Producer: Susanne Serres
A dance & art short film about psychosis – from mental illness to full recovery.
Cast: Kym Dominique-Ferguson 

On The Outs (USA)
Director: Jordan Melograna – Producers: Mark Stroh, David Carlson, Anna Guy, Jordan Melograna, Tina Pinedo
On The Outs follows three people with various disabilities, including vision impairment, brain injury, and mental illness, as they reenter the community from Washington State prisons.
Cast: Eldorado Fleetwood Cadillac Brown, Tyrone Gatherings, Kara Moser

Road to Zion (USA)
Director: Andrew Reid – Screenwriters: Andrew Reid, Jeremy Palmer
A Jamaican immigrant finds his life in LA shaken by forces outside his control as he struggles to understand how far he is willing to go to protect his family.

Safety Net (Australia) North American Premiere
Director: Anthea Williams / Screenwriter: Julian Larnach
Thirteen-year-old Terry is in emergency care with guardians after his mother’s arrest. Cheeky and living with a disability, he outwits one guardian while finding exactly the connection he needs from the other.
Cast: William Best, Nikki Shiels, Steve Rodgers

Single (USA)
Director / Screenwriter: Ashley Eakin
A girl born with one arm gets set-up on a blind date with a guy who has one hand, and she is pissed!
Cast: Jordan Wiseley, Delaney Feener

Stilts (United Kingdom) North American Premiere

Director / Screenwriter: Dylan Holmes Williams

A young man tries to escape a surreal dystopia where everyone wears ginormous metal stilts.

Cast: Tom Glynn-Carney, Con O’Neill, Hebe Beardsall, Amanda Hale

The Bin (Philippines) US Premiere

Director / Screenwriter: Jocelyn Tamayao

A father struggles to connect with his son, who grows to love a language not native to his tongue.

Cast: Patrick Silver Padao, Brian Arda, Zernice Mae Cruz, and Juner N. Quiambao

The Butterfly Circus (USA)
Director: Joshua Weigel – Screenwriters: Joshua Weigel, Rebekah Weigel
The story of a renowned circus troupe traveling through the devastated American landscape at the height of the Great Depression, lifting the spirits of audiences along the way. During their travels they discover a man without limbs in a carnival sideshow, but after an intriguing encounter with the showman, he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.
Cast: Nick Vujicic, Eduardo Verastegui, Dou Jones

The Co-Op (USA) World Premiere
Director / Screenwriter: Cameron S. Mitchell
A robber’s plan goes horribly awry when he realizes the store he has targeted is full of disabled people.
Cast: Josh Matthews, Emilie Krause, Emma Mitchell, David Mitchell

Union (USA)
Director / Screenwriter: Julia Neill
A young Civil War surgeon in the Union army visits home with an unexpected companion: a soldier whose arm she amputated.
Cast: Scott Barton, Amanda Forstrom, Zack Rukavina, Evan Casey, Barbara Zablocky

Unspoken (USA)
Directors / Screenwriters: Emma Zurcher-Long, Julia Ngeow & Geneva Peschka
A groundbreaking point-of-view documentary exploring a non-fluent speaker’s world. 14-year-old Emma challenges societal judgment surrounding autism…one keystroke at a time.
Cast: Emma Zurcher-Long

Verisimilitude (United Kingdom)
Director: David Proud / Screenwriter: Justin Edgar
A struggling disabled actress gets a job advising a film star how to be disabled for his latest role.
Cast: Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith, Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe

NBCUniversal pledges to include actors with disabilities in auditions for all film, TV projects

From The Associated Press:

In the picture, actress Eileen Grubba appears in a scene from "New Amsterdam." NBCUniversal said Jan. 29 that actors with disabilities will be included in auditions for all new productions, an agreement sought by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a disability rights advocate. Grubba, an actor and disability activist, said NBCUniversal's action, coupled with that of CBS Entertainment, could lead to wider change. (NBCUniversal via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actors with disabilities will be included in auditions for each new film and television production at NBCUniversal, which becomes the second major media company to make such a commitment.

NBCUniversal said Friday that the pledge covers projects by the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, Universal Studio Group, NBC network and Peacock streaming service.

The pledge was made in response to calls for change by the Ruderman Family Foundation, following a similar commitment the disability rights advocate received from CBS Entertainment in 2019.

“My hope is that other major studios in the industry will now see NBCUniversal and say, ‘This is something that makes sense and we’re also going to commit to this,’” said Jay Ruderman, head of the Boston-based foundation. Disney, Sony and major streaming services including Netflix and Amazon are among others the foundation would like to enlist, he said.

As more people with disabilities are seen in roles, “it will have ramifications throughout society,” Ruderman told The Associated Press. Comcast-owned NBCUniversal signed on after a series of conversations with the foundation, he said.

The company is committed “to creating content that authentically reflects the world we live in, and increasing opportunities for those with disabilities is an integral part of that,” said NBCUniversal executive vice president Janine Jones-Clark, whose portfolio includes film, TV and streaming inclusion.

Outside calls for action are important and “hold the industry accountable of the work we still need to do in order to see systemic change,” Jones-Clark said in a statement.

According to the most recent foundation report, only about 22% of characters with disabilities on network and streaming shows in 2018 were “authentically portrayed by actors with disabilities.” That’s an improvement over 2016′s finding that 5% of such TV roles went to actors with disabilities.

Actor Kurt Yaeger a member of the SAG-AFTRA Performers with Disability Committee, lauded the new agreement. “It’s what I’ve been pushing for 10 years,” he said, given how infrequently studios and producers open the door to people with disabilities.

Yaeger, who uses a prosthetic leg because of a motorcycle accident, has appeared as a guest actor in more than 50 TV episodes, including ABC’s “The Good Doctor” and Netflix’s upcoming “Another Life.” That’s more than most people who are auditioning regularly for continuing series roles, he said, adding, “I’d like more of those opportunities for me and my fellow performers with disabilities.”

While NBCUniversal’s commitment is a “great start,” Yaeger said he wants to see every other network and studio do the same thing and allow their progress to be monitored.

Eileen Grubba, an actor and disability activist, said NBCUniversal’s action, coupled with that of CBS Entertainment, could lead to wider change. Grubba, whose credits include HBO’s “Watchmen” and NBC’s “New Amsterdam,” already considered both companies to be leaders in disability diversity.

“The two of them together, standing up and saying, ‘This will happen, this will be done,’ puts pressure on the rest of the industry,” said Grubba, who uses a leg brace because of childhood spinal cord damage. “This is a massive win for this community and for inclusion, and hopefully for all the people who have been in this industry many, many years without ever getting opportunities.”

The growing pressure on movie and TV makers to give women, people of color and the LGBTQ community greater representation may have increased awareness of one of the country’s largest and overlooked minority groups, Ruderman said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 26% of the U.S. population has some form of disability. Their near-invisibility on screen, both as characters and actors, influences how the community is perceived, Ruderman said.

“Not seeing people who have disabilities in film and on TV does impact society, it does shape attitudes,” he said. Three decades since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, unemployment remains high among people with disabilities and ”a lot of that has to do with stigma.”

”I don’t think you can mandate through legislation how people feel. But I think that entertainment can change the way people feel,” Ruderman said.

Although the agreement with NBCUniversal doesn’t establish hiring goals, Grubba said the value of getting a chance to audition shouldn’t be undersold.

“It requires repeated attempts to get good at it,” she said. “And when you’re competing against people who audition 10 times a week and you’re only getting in one to three times a year, if you’re lucky, you don’t have the same skills in dealing with the pressures and the best way to get through them.”

"CODA," Sundance film about sole hearing member of Deaf New England family who discovers she has a talent for singing, purchased by Apple for record-breaking $25 million

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Apple has nabbed the rights to Sundance drama CODA from writer-director Sian Heder in a deal worth $25 million according to sources.

Heading into the fest, it was anticipated that the movie would be one of Sundance's hottest titles. A bidding war began after the movie's day one premiere, which saw Netflix and Amazon put in bids for the movie.

The final $25 million price tag makes the film the biggest sale in the festival's history, beating out last year's record-breaker Palm Springs, which sold to Neon and Hulu in a deal that was worth $22 million.  (Prior to Palm Springs, 2016's Birth of a Nation held the record with a $17.5 million to Fox Searchlight.)

The title, which premiered in the U.S. dramatic competition, follows Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family’s fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and abandoning her family.

Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant and Marlee Matlin also star in the film.

Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, and Patrick Wachsberger produced the movie, with Ardavan Safaee and Sarah Borch-Jacobsen executive producing.

"I hope that this film and Apple’s powerful support will help kick down some doors standing in the way of inclusion and representation and pave a path for more stories that center characters from the Deaf and Disabled community," said Heder. "The world has waited too long for these stories to be told. Now is the time. No more excuses.”

CAA Media Finance and ICM Partners negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers.

Oscar-worthy ‘Sound of Metal’ a ‘wake-up’ to Deaf culture

 

From Variety:

Amazon’s “Sound of Metal” is a piece of terrific filmmaking — and its achievements are even more impressive considering Hollywood’s depictions of deafness in the past.

“Sound of Metal,” directed by Darius Marder, stars Riz Ahmed (pictured) as a heavy-metal drummer who begins to lose his hearing. The film has a three-act structure: Attempts by drummer Ruben to cope; his time spent in a deaf community; and his attempts to re-create his life as it was before the hearing loss.

The heart of the film is the middle segment, when community leader Joe (the excellent Paul Raci) tells Ruben that deafness “is not something to fix” and his assignment is simple: “Learn how to be deaf.”

Director Marder tells Variety, “This film is a wake-up. Most people think of deafness as a physical disability. We don’t understand that it is in fact a culture.”

In the past, most onscreen characters with any disability have been played by able-bodied actors. “I made it very clear that I wasn’t going to represent deaf people unless the actors were deaf or from a deaf culture,” Marder says. By way of example, he adds, “Joe is such a demanding role and some money people saw that as a role for a name actor. It was difficult to tell financiers, ‘We’re not gonna do that.’ ”

This respect of deaf culture makes the film an exception to Hollywood history. Oscar winners include Jane Wyman (“Johnny Belinda”) and Patty Duke (“The Miracle Worker”), and nominees include Alan Arkin (“The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”) and Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”). All four played deaf characters, and all four are hearing actors.

Sometimes movies introduce deaf characters for laughs (the Neil Simon “Murder by Death”), or as a plot device in thrillers (the 1987 “Suspect,” “The River Wild,” “Hush,” et al.)

Frequently a film tries to make a supporting character unusual by making them deaf or hard of hearing, including “Creed,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “In the Company of Men,” “Mr. Holland’s Opus” and “Nashville.” In the vast majority of these films, the deaf character is alone in a hearing world, with no sense of community.

There are notable exceptions, such as “Children of a Lesser God,” starring Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, and characters played by CJ Jones in “Baby Driver”; Russell Harvard in “There Will Be Blood” and the biopic “The Hammer”; and Millicent Simmonds in “Wonderstruck” and “A Quiet Place.”

Did Marder consider casting a deaf actor to play drummer Ruben?

“I didn’t, because there’s a process that Ruben goes through as a character, and that the actor and the audience will go through. It’s a process of being thrust into a world that’s unfamiliar. Hearing people become the minority. You would lose that element if the actor was deaf, because they would come from a place of comfort.” The audience learns “how to be deaf” at the same time Ruben does and part of the dramatic tension in the film — scripted by Marder, Derek Cianfrance and Abraham Marder — is wondering if Ruben will ever adjust.

After Hollywood’s sad history of deaf depictions, Marder says, “Movies that try to appropriate deaf culture and represent it without proper connections are pretty offensive. Deaf people always remember when someone pretends to be deaf. But I have noticed a generous spirit in the deaf culture. They’re not looking to tear things down.

“The deaf community unfortunately has gotten used to being ignored and dismissed. They are moving from feeling grateful that people even notice that they exist, to realizing that they should be noticed.

“As Paul always says, ‘Nothing about us without us.’ ”

"Run" on Hulu, an excellent thriller starring wheelchair user Kiera Allen, moves disability representation in positive direction

 Review by Beth A. Haller, Media dis&dat

Note: “Run” was originally slated for theatrical release in May, but when the Covid-19 pandemic shut theaters, Hulu bought distribution rights in August. “Run” will premiere on Hulu November 20, 2020.

“Run” is a bold thriller with “American Horror Story” staple and Emmy winner Sarah Paulson and newcomer Kiera Allen, who is a wheelchair user. The Lionsgate film, directed by Aneesh Chaganty, is the first Hollywood studio film to star a wheelchair user since 1948, when Susan Peters starred in “Sign of the Ram” for MGM. (Peters, already an Academy Award-nominated actor, became disabled in a gun accident in 1945.)

Allen is the true star of the film and has the most screen time as the home-schooled teen, Chloe, who begins to suspect all is not right in her isolated, rural home that she shares with her mother Diane (Paulson). Chloe is ready to break free and go to college and that sets off the terror. 

Unlike other films that disable characters to make them vulnerable, the Chloe character's disability in “Run” is just another character trait - one that aids her resourcefulness, as her home schooling does. Several scenes feature Allen's character MacGyvering her way around obstacles. It is thrilling to watch, and the audience becomes invested in Chloe figuring out the secrets and out-maneuvering Diane’s control. It also confirms that Hollywood studios should be casting many more disabled actors for all kinds of roles: Allen gives a brilliant physical performance because she has a number of scenes with no dialogue. Chloe ingeniously figures out workarounds when presented with any difficulty.

Paulson’s Diane shows her finesse with the thriller genre as her character subtly shifts from motherly to menacing. Chloe and Diane’s relationship arc takes the audience on a psychological ride through the awakening to the secrets around Chloe. Diane believes she can control Chloe because of her disability, not realizing she has raised a resilient young woman who is every bit her match. 

The film also uses CGI in one scene in a way I have long advocated - to show a wheelchair-using character walking in the past or in the future, but through CGI, a disabled actor is used in the scene with CGI’d walking.

“Run” illustrates how the representation of a disabled character can have depth and nuance, but having a disability is not the only memorable thing about the character. Director Chaganty took a collaborative approach in working with Allen to make sure she, as a disabled person, help craft an authentic character. Read about their work together here.  

“Run” feels like the beginning of a new positive trajectory for disabled characters in film. I hope that all Hollywood studios continue on this path of authentic representation.

 

Entertainers discuss disability representation in Hollywood

From The Associated Press. In this combination photo, Marlee Matlin, from left, arrives at the 38th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on June 19th, 2011 in Las Vegas, Millicent Simmonds arrives at the 24th annual Critics' Choice Awards on Jan. 13, 2019, in Santa Monica, Calif., Danny Woodburn attends the premiere of "Dead Ant" on Oct. 10, 2017, in Los Angeles and Maysoon Zayid attends the Women's Media Awards on Oct. 22, 2019, in New York. Matlin, Simmonds, Woodburn and Zayid are just a few of the Hollywood insiders who participated in a series of virtual panels Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, examining the state of disability representation in Hollywood. The series is hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in celebration of the 30th anniversary year of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It’s an old cliche that if an actor wants to win an Oscar, he or she should consider playing a character with a disability. And it’s not entirely unfounded advice: 61 actors have been nominated for playing a character with a disability and 27 have walked away winners. But only two of those actors actually had a disability — Marlee Matlin in “Children of a Lesser God” and Harold Russell in “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

That’s just one of the things that needs to change, according to a group of entertainment industry professionals with disabilities including actors Danny Woodburn, “A Quiet Place’s” Millicent Simmonds and “Peanut Butter Falcon’s” Zack Gottsagen. They and other creatives with disabilities, from directors to VFX artists, spoke about the state of representation in front of and behind the camera in series of virtual panels organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that debuted Monday night. The panels, funded in part by a grant from the Ruderman Family Foundation, coincides with the 30th anniversary year of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“It would be really helpful to have a disabled (Disney) princess,” said actor and comedian Maysoon Zayid, who has cerebral palsy.

Zayid noted that people with visible and invisible disabilities make up about 20% of the American population but a miniscule number of characters on television and in film.

“The message being sent out to disabled kids is you do not belong in this world,” Zayid said. “People with disabilities face enormous amounts of bullying, violence and discrimination. Positive images of disability can stop that.”

Part of that is casting actors with disabilities to play characters with disabilities. Simmonds, who is deaf, said she’s had to go up against non-disabled actors for disabled roles. She recalled that her “A Quiet Place” director John Krasinski had to fight to cast a deaf actor and that producers wanted someone who was hearing.

“Deaf roles should be played by deaf actors,” she said through an interpreter.

At times she’s even taken it a step forward to advocate for herself.

“I’m not above calling directors or producers and suggesting that they have a deaf actress for a particular role,” she said.

But another part of the equation is giving actors rich and nuanced storylines that go beyond the three they usually get: “‘You can’t love me because I’m disabled,’ ‘heal me’ or ‘kill me,’” said Zayid.

Woodburn, who has dwarfism, remembers watching actors like Michael Dunn when he was young and seeing only stereotypes and tropes like the “sad little man” or the “devious little man” and storylines that were the same.

There is also the issue of working and how productions can be more accommodating to people with disabilities both on screen and behind the scenes. Many noted that they don’t want to ask for special accommodations.

Zayid remembered being unable to get into her trailer on the set of “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” and basically had to ask a production assistant to help hoist her up.

“Adam Sandler saw and said, ‘What is happening? Make her trailer accessible!” I said I didn’t want to be high maintenance,” she said. “He said ‘look around, we’re in Hollywood.’”

Jim LeBrecht, who directed the Netflix documentary “Crip Camp,” said it could help if the industry re-thought its own barriers to entry, like starting as a production assistant who has to carry 14 cups of coffee and work 20 hour days to get a foot in the door.

“Instead of asking what you won’t be able to do, ask is there anything I can do to help you do the best work you can,” LeBrecht said. “None of us got to your door by being oversensitive and mad at everybody...we are comfortable with our disability.”

VFX supervisor Kaitlyn Yang said that people with disabilities can be particularly effective in post-production roles. She’s also found a silver-lining in the video conferencing realities of COVID-era filmmaking: She doesn’t have to wonder now if she should address her wheelchair.

“Video conferencing is taking away the uncomfortableness that people might have if I were to take a meeting and roll into the conference room,” Yang said. “It puts us on an equal playing field.”

Talent manager Eryn Brown hopes that disability representation reach the same level of discussion as LGBTQ and racial and ethnic diversity. She said the ingrained stigma around it has even made her reticent to discuss it with her clients.

“A raised awareness in this moment of cultural reckoning is imperative,” Brown said. “Anyone at any moment can become disabled so it’s in everyone’s best interests in the world to be accommodating.”

The film academy, which puts on the Oscars, has been working to increase diversity in its own ranks and in the industry and recently set inclusion standards for best picture nominees.

“As the Academy continues to examine longstanding issues of representation within the film industry, it’s imperative we bring conversations about disabilities to the forefront,” said Christine Simmons, who heads the Academy’s office of representation, inclusion and equity.