ReelAbilities 2011

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Sunday, 06 February 2011 02:53

Written by L E Shannon

The Third Annual ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival is running February 3 - 8, 2011 at The JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, and other locations throughout the New York metropolitan area. ReelAbilities is dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expressions of people with different abilities.

The festival presents award-winning films, discussions and other engaging programs to bring the community together to explore, discuss and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.

The Opening Night film is Anita, a narrative film directed by Marcos Carnevale (Argentina). A young woman with Down syndrome gets separated from her mother after a bomb explodes at their Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires. She is alone for the first time as she searches for her mother.

The Closing Night film is the documentary Wretches & Jabberers, directed by Gerardine Wurzburg (USA). An accomplished artist and an activist, both with autism, embark on a global quest to change attitudes about autism and intelligence.

Other films are:

Reel Encounters
Various (UK/Australia)
A delightful, diverse collection of groundbreaking short films made by and about different deaf communities from around the world.

Narratives:

Me Too
dir. Antonio Naharro, Álvaro Pastor (Spain)
A recent college graduate with Down Syndrome forges a strong bond with a vivacious workmate, but their burgeoning relationship turns complicated when he professes his love to her.

My Spectacular Theater
dir. Lu Yang (China)
A pirate-DVD seller finds refuge and employment in a Beijing movie theater for the blind. As his relationship to the blind community deepens, he finds love, acceptance, and heartbreak.

Documentaries:

Brain Damadj’d…Take II
dir. Paul Nadler (Canada)
Ten years ago, Paul Nadler was an extreme sportsman, award-winning TV director, and a veritable Casanova to boot. When a car accident leaves him with a traumatic brain injury, he sets out to reaffirm he is still is all of these things.

Crooked Beauty
dir. Ken Paul Rosenthal (USA)
This account of artist-activist Jacks Ashley McNamara traces his journey from troubled childhood to psych ward patient to pioneering mental health advocate.

The Last American Freak Show
dir. Richard Butchins (UK)
A motley crew of performers with disabilities turns the American Freak Show on its head as they travel the country exposing bigotry, bucking expectations and challenging preconceptions, one performance at a time.

The Red Chapel
dir. Mads Brügger (Denmark)
A journalist with no scruples and two Danish/Korean comedians—one a self-proclaimed “spastic” with cerebral palsy—travel to North Korea under the guise of cultural exchange. “Mixing biting humor and incisive investigative skills the troupe exposes a totalitarian regime long suspected of shunning its disabled population.”

Wandering Eyes
dir. Ofir Trainin (Israel)
A former Orthodox Jew and recently diagnosed manic depressive, Gabriel Belhassan is the next big thing in the rock music world. Upon being released from a psychiatric facility, he begins work on a solo album, battling myriad daily challenges.

Warrior Champions
dir. Craig Renaud, Brent Renaud (China/US)
Four Iraq War veterans suffering paralysis and the loss of limbs set out to compete in the Paralympic Games, in this “uplifting testament to the human spirit that challenges every notion of what it means to be disabled.”

All films are followed by discussion with filmmakers and speakers.

Other events:

Diversity on Sesame Street
Emily Perl Kingsley is a writer who joined Sesame Street in 1970. Her experience with her son Jason, who was born with Down Syndrome, inspired her to include people with disabilities into the Sesame Street cast.

FREE Players
Family Residences and Essential Enterprises’ (FREE) jazz ensemble of performers with mental and developmental disabilities.

Returning this year is Flame, the band of 11 musicians/performers with developmental and physical disabilities.

IF Created by Heidi Latsky Dance
Heidi Latsky returns with IF, a community-based dance performance with a diverse cast of 20 that is multi-generational, multiracial and of mixed ability.

Music for Autism
An Interactive, "Autism Friendly" Concert with Broadway’s Jersey Boys’ Dominic Nolfi, Dominic Scaglione and Deborah Hurwitz.

Our Time Theater Company
Our Time is a non-profit organization that uses the arts to improve the confidence and communication skills of children who stutter, ages 8-18. The company showcases two original songs and one original play written by children who stutter: “Magical Place,” written by kids ages 8-12, and performed by Julianna Padilla, age 13; “You Don’t Know Hurt,” written by Linda Gjonbalaj, age 15, and performed by Our Time alumni Danielle Diseu; and Anxiety, written by Our Time alumni Ned Bealy and performed by professional actors Ned Eisenberg and Kathryn Grody. The performance will be followed by a talkback with Julianna, Ned, and Danielle. The company is committed to offering its NYC programming free of charge and providing financial aid for its national program, Camp Our Time.

Whitney Signs: Charles LeDray: workworkworkworkwork
Whitney Signs is a free American Sign Language gallery tour with voice interpretation of Charles LeDray: workworkworkworkwork.

This major survey of sculptor Charles LeDray features the artist’s works which inspire reflection on the past and on our common humanity. The exhibition “spans the 1980s to the present and celebrates both the artist’s virtuosity with materials and his uncanny manipulation of scale to create seemingly familiar objects that engage our collective memory.”

Seeing with Photography
This Collective is a group of photographers based in New York City who are visually impaired, sighted and totally blind.

Navigating Disability: An Exploration by 4 Artists
Artists Jacks McNamara, Martin Cohen, Emily Eifler and Scott Ligon navigate unique relationships between disability and creative expressions in this exhibition presented by Fountain Gallery, the premier venue for artists with mental illness, and VSA, the international organization on arts and disability. The installation is on view February 3 through April 28 at The Laurie M Tisch Gallery at The JCC in Manhattan. A reception and talk with Artist Jacks McNamara is being held Saturday evening.

For more information, visit www.reelabilities.org.

ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival
February 3 - 8, 2011

The JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10023
646-505-5738
877-505-6708 - TTY
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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