RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Nasreen Alkhateeb

Nasreen Alkhateeb is an award winning filmmaker whose work amplifies under-represented. Most recently, Nasreen served a writer for Kamala Harris’ VP campaign, and wrote scripts for NASA, the United Nations, and the Women’s March. Her films have screened at Tribeca Film Festival, Slamdance, Netflix, Amazon and IFC. The lens Nasreen motivates audiences through is being BiPOC multi-heritage (Black + Iraqi), 1st generation, LGBTQ, survivor of war, trainer for survivors of gender violence, and an acquired disability after a hit and run.

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RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt

Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt (she/her/hers) is a writer, consultant, actress, public speaker, and advocate for disability and autism representation in the entertainment industry. She brings her lived experiences to her work as a Chinese, transracial, Jewish, autistic adoptee – creating a professional niche for herself at the intersections of entertainment, storytelling, inclusion and accessibility! [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Ashley Eakin

Born in California and raised in Nebraska, Ashley Eakin is a writer-director based out of Los Angeles with a physical disability. She was most recently selected for the Powderkeg Fuse Incubator, curated by Paul Feig, in addition to the 2021 Commercial Directors Diversity Program. Last year she was 1 of 8 women selected for the AFI Directing Workshop for Women and her project SINGLE was selected for the 2020 SXSW Film Festival and received the Special Jury Recognition Award. The film has played in over 30 festivals winning 7 awards and 2 nominations. Eakin was also the recipient of the New York Women in Film Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant. In 2020 Eakin was hired as a Staff Writer on an Animated Netflix series, featuring a character with a disability. Prior to working on her own projects, in 2019 Eakin worked for and shadowed Mark Pellington on the Quibi series SURVIVE filmed in the Italian Alps starring Sophie Turner and Corey Hawkins. Prior to this, Eakin was the assistant to film director Jon M. Chu. In 2017 she spent 5 months in Malaysia and Singapore working on his critically-acclaimed box-office hit CRAZY RICH ASIANS. Ashley has consulted on two projects for Disney. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Tatiana Lee

Tatiana Lee is an actress, international model, and activist. Growing up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, Lee felt unseen in popular media. In 2010 Lee moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career. She learned to harness social media’s power to speak boldly about accessibility and inclusion in mass media due to the lack of access and opportunities for herself and others with disabilities. [continue reading…]

On April 8 we observe Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and remember the 11 million people who perished throughout the Holocaust. When we think about the Holocaust, we generally think about the 6 million Jewish people that were killed. But there were other populations that were targeted in the Holocaust: Roma, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. [continue reading…]

Max’s character will offer an authentic representation of Autism for children and adult audiences alike

Washington, D.C., April 1 – 13-year-old Israel Thomas-Bruce has not had the opportunity to see himself represented on TV in the way that many other children may have. That is changing with the addition of a new neighbor in Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood – Max, Teacher Harriet’s autistic nephew.

The show authentically cast Thomas-Bruce, who was diagnosed with autism when he was four years old, as Max. Thomas-Bruce said this experience gave him “an extra boost of confidence.” [continue reading…]

Hottle’s character Jia is the emotional heart of this movie

Los Angeles, April 1 – A Warner Bros. blockbuster film starring CGI monsters of mayhem and destruction is now being streamed across the world in living rooms, dorms, and select doomsday bunkers that just so happen to have Wi-Fi, as Godzilla vs. Kong goes live on their streaming service, HBO Max.

Godzilla vs. Kong is exactly what you want from a giant monster movie. It has a fast-moving story, a couple of funny moments, and most importantly, epic monster fights that show just how tiny humans are by comparison to their skyscraper-like sizes. Overall, it’s a pretty by-the-books monster movie. One where you can just sit back and enjoy the destruction and be thankful you don’t live in a coastal city.

There aren’t a lot of surprises in this movie, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not every film has to have twists and turns that keep you guessing throughout the duration of the movie. Sometimes two monsters just throwing hands in order to determine who the most powerful being on Earth is, is enough. However, there is one pleasant surprise in this film, and it is the performance given by Kaylee Hottle, who was just 9 years old when she filmed Godzilla vs. Kong. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, April 1 – The theme of this year’s Easterseals Disability Film Challenge was “mockumentary,” and RespectAbility 2020 Summer Lab alumna Rachel Handler and Catriona Rubenis-Stevens’s comedic satire balanced with an inspired message truly champions their short film, So You Wanna Be an Actor, as a vehicle to promote authentic disability inclusion in entertainment. As director, writer, producer and lead actress of the film, Handler’s creative direction helped her filmmaking team highlight how limiting the casting process in Hollywood can often be for people with disabilities, all in under five minutes.

During one of the film’s opening scenes, the camera angle is focused only on a prosthetic leg of an aspiring young actress, to which this rising star responds, “Hey, my eyes are up here.” Not only is this a hilarious juxtaposition of dialogue because of the phrase’s more adult connotations, it also is a satirical metaphor that shows how cinematic objectification is truly intersectional and isn’t exclusive to sexualization. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, April 1 – The 2021 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge has provided some fantastic short films again this year, and as always, gives great examples of best practices when it comes to disability representation in entertainment. For those unaware, the Easterseals Film Challenge is a filmmaking competition where competitors are given a topic along with a series of other elements to include, and must write, direct and edit a short film all in a single weekend, while involving people with disabilities in front of and behind the camera.

This year, 2019 RespectAbility Lab Alumna Natalie Trevonne created a short mockumentary called NayNay Too Bomb. Trevonne wrote and stars as the title character in this hilarious short film. [continue reading…]