Hollywood Inclusion

Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Los Angeles, Feb 1 – I bloom. I flower. I grow. I thrive.

These four short sentences are etched into a notebook near the end of the animated short By Water, which premiered at Sundance 2023 as part of the Animation Short Film Program. The intensely personal experimental short follows an unlikely hero’s journey into his subconscious, where each memory becomes a cathartic vehicle for reconciliation and healing for himself and his sibling.

The story stems from the writer/director Iyabo Kwayana’s relationship with her brother, who has a mental disability and whose whereabouts were unknown for three years. After an unexpected voicemail 3 years after his disappearance, Kwayana made the conscious decision to honor his message and create By Water as a way to complete her brother’s story. [continue reading…]

Salt Lake City, UT, Jan. 30 – As part of Slamdance’s first in-person Unstoppable series, a showcase of films made exclusively by disabled artists, “Teacher of Patience” spotlights the Felter Family and follows them as they travel to educate the public and advocate for people with disabilities. After Tom Felter heard multiple stories about first responders making quick decisions and judgments about people with disabilities that led to unnecessary tragedies, such as the death of Ethan Saylor, he realized that he was in the unique position as both a paramedic and father of Emily, who is a person with Down syndrome, to educate the public. Thus, he developed The Emily Talk with first responders in mind.

In the same vein as the Talk itself, one of the primary goals of this 30-minute documentary is to serve as an educational tool for first responders and preaches the idea of patience when interacting with people with disabilities. Having Emily front and center strengthens not only the educational aspect of the film, but the film itself. Emily is a funny and loving person who also swears like a sailor, and the films shows her complex nature by following her day-to-day life while her family fills in aspects of her story in sit-down interviews. [continue reading…]

Credit: Steve Wilkie/FOX

Washington, D.C., Jan. 26 – Until their child is born, most parents wait in anticipation. They pick out baby names, scour parenting books, and dream about what kind of person their child will become. But what happens when expectation doesn’t meet reality? Marlee Matlin’s directorial debut “Ava’s Story,” the second episode of crime drama Accused, presents a real-life example to that question: the cochlear implant debate.

The episode revolves around Ava (Stephanie Nogueras), Deaf* surrogate to hearing couple Max and Jenny (Aaron Ashmore and Megan Boone). All is well, until they discover their child Lucie is deaf. The couple wants Lucie to use cochlear implants; Ava wants to protect Lucie’s deafness. In a moment of desperation, Ava kidnaps the baby. Some viewers may be quick to judge her impulsivity, but Matlin shows that the cochlear implant debate is nothing but complex, deftly weaving each character’s passion and motives into a more complete picture. [continue reading…]

Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

New York City, Jan 26 – Well Wishes My Love, Your Love is a mesmerizing experience with a carefully crafted animated style that will take you into another world. Gabriel Gabriel Garble’s animated short film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in the Animation Short Film Program. An accomplished illustrator outside of being an animation director, Garble’s experimental film is breaking the barriers of animation as a whole and how we as an audience can experience a film.

Newly orphaned and freshly wounded from a loss, a boy lends his companion a prosthetic arm for the day. The companion records the limb being exposed to textures and materials, surprising his friend with the recorded journey. Through experimental 2D and 3D techniques, Garble builds a dreamy and contemplative universe. This silent film can feel all-encompassing through its ambient sound which captures both natural sounds and a hypnotic hymn that pulls the audience into a slow meditation. This means that as we journey through the boy and his friend’s prosthetic arm, we’re thrown directly into Garble’s unique world and travel from the perspective of both the boy and the prosthetic arm. We watch a sunset that feels so abstract yet so real. We pet the silhouette of a three-legged horse, who, through the carefully composed music and animation, truly breathes right next to us. It can be hard to pull away from the screen as we’re pulled into colorful hypnosis. [continue reading…]

A still from Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, by Davis Guggenheim an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Park City, Utah, Jan. 25 – Presented as an interview and told through both archival and scripted elements, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is about owning your narrative, which often is difficult for disabled individuals to do. All too often, society determines the worth of an individual based on preconceived notions. Even when the most successful people acquire a disability, society is quick to judge and make assumptions that they are now less than.

This led Michael J. Fox to hide his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, which he received at 29 years of age (younger than most), for seven years. He would mask trembling by twiddling with an object in his left hand and timed his pills, popping them “like Halloween Smarties” to have the most effect when he was working.

“Therapeutic value, comfort – none of these were the reason I took these pills. There was only one reason: to hide,” Fox says in the documentary. “I became a virtuoso of manipulating drug intake so that I’d peak at exactly the right time and place.” [continue reading…]

Jeena Yi and Anna Sargent in Take Me Home. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Park City, Utah, Jan. 25 – After winning the Julia S Gouw Film Challenge in partnership with Janet Yang Productions and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, the short film Take Me Home had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

The short follows a cognitively disabled adult named Anna who lives with her aging mother in Midland, Florida. When her mother is unresponsive, Anna calls her sister Emily for help. Unable to articulate in a way that Emily truly understands, Anna is brushed aside.

It isn’t until Emily comes home from work that Anna’s concerns are validated. What follows is a seemingly hopeless struggle for Emily to lay out a plan for Anna moving forward. A particular point of contention centers around what Anna’s daily medication is supposed to be. Without their mom, there’s a disconnect between how the two sisters communicate. In the end, it’s Anna whose straightforward strength and ability to see the bigger picture that fosters a reconciliation between them, culminating in Anna expressing her desire to be independent and get her own place to live. [continue reading…]

Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Park City, Utah, Jan. 25 – The cutting reality that your life has been forever formed by a series of self-made choices hits deeply with most experiences of being human. But the real slap occurs when you foster space to explore the decisions that were made on behalf of you. Ella Glendining suspends this theme above the heads of her audience with the documentary Is There Anybody Out There?, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, January 22. In her feature doc, Glendining sets out to explore disability and the urgent desire to find a mirrored image among her fellow humans.

Glendining, born with no hip joints and short femurs, evaded surgical intervention during her childhood to change her image. Her condition is quite rare. However, through the course of her film, she interviews a group of disabled folks who share her diagnosis. As she guides the conversations, she poses the same quandary to them: should disabled people change their disability? Glendining seems to think not, at least – for her condition. At the emotional apex of the film, Glendining confesses her position to the mother of Charlie, a little boy with the same disability. “He’s perfect,” Glendining tearfully proclaims. [continue reading…]

Park City, Jan. 19 – With one-in-five people having a disability in the U.S. today, the lack of representation – just 2.3 percent of characters in the 100 top-grossing films of 2019 and 8 percent in family films – means that millions of people are unable to see themselves reflected in media.

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival (January 19 – 29) will provide an opportunity for audiences with various disabilities to see themselves represented – both in-person and virtually.

This year, several films feature disability in the plot, including Is There Anybody Out There?, Sometimes I Think About Dying, Slow, The Eternal Memory, The Tuba Thieves, To Live and Die and Live, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Fairyland, Chanshi, Take Me Home, Well Wishes My Love, Your Love, By Water, and Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie, among others. [continue reading…]

New York City, Jan 12 – Heartwarming, witty, and wonderfully sweet, An Irish Goodbye conveys the nuance of two characters caught in the middle of grief while also tackling what some people would consider an unusual brotherhood. Lorcan, played by James Martin, is taken aback by his mother’s death but also is afraid he will lose his brother Turlough. Meanwhile, his brother, played by Seamus O’Hara, struggles to find a way to care for his brother who has Down syndrome. Turlough wants to send Lorcan off to his aunt so he can return to London and just move on.

It is no wonder that this short film has been shortlisted for the BAFTA Film Awards and the Academy Awards. It manages to explore so many complicated subjects in such a short time while also delivering truly charming characters. It can be hard to find honest and well-meaning portrayals of “inter-abled” relationships. So many films show a caretaker who outshines the character with a disability, who is only defined by their struggles. Often, characters like Lorcan would be reduced to tropes surrounding Down syndrome. However, An Irish Goodbye changes everything by making sure that the core of the story is a relationship between brothers.

James Martin as Lorcan in An Irish Goodbye

Lorcan feels like such a wonderfully fleshed-out character, even when people misunderstand him. He is mourning for his mother but also for the previous relationship he’s had with his brother. He also has a memorable personality of his own: he is easily the funniest character and approaches everything in an honest and sweet manner. Turlough finds that maybe he underestimated Lorcan and hasn’t opened himself up to seeing him as he is. Seeing both brothers slowly understand and laugh with each other, in their unique way, will make anyone fall in love with these characters.

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