Join Rory Culkin and RJ Mitte Announced as Special Guests at the 7th Annual Reelabilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival
- Details
- Category: Entertainment News
- Published on Monday, 09 March 2015 20:15
- Written by Janet Walker
The largest edition of ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival in the festival’s history has just added two more names to its celebrated guest speakers, panelist, and supporter schedule. Opening night, March 12, 2015, at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum will include a performance by The Voice Season 7's Blessing Offor.
Rory Culkin, whose lead performance in Lou Howes' directorial debut, Gabriel, was named "electrifying" by Variety Magazine, will discuss his role in the film after the film's screening at JCC Manhattan. The festival's closing night event will include welcoming remarks from Breaking Bad's RJ Mitte along with a special comedy night featuring performers and comedians with disabilities.
Following the NY premiere of The Finishers, Professor Annette Insdorf will engage in conversation with award-winning director, Nils Tavernier.
Every film at the ReelAbilities film festival is followed by a conversation, as way of further engaging the community with the important topics presented in the films. Panel discussions and conversations follow each of the festival's 100+ screenings and events presented throughout the New York Metro area.
For a full list of festival speakers, visit: http://ny.reelabilities.org/guests
ReelAbilities will be marking the 25th anniversary of the ADA with a Friday night dinner and screening of three films: The Astronaut's Secret, On Beauty, and Riding My Way Back, accompanied by a discussion on New York City's path to disability rights with historian Warren Shaw and Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein, moderated by Lawrence Carter-Long (Co-Host of TCM's The Projected Image.)
This is one of over a dozen special events that the festival will be hosting, which include a disability filmmaking workshop with DCTV, art exhibits, author talks, and more.
A full list of festival events, visit: http://ny.reelabilities.org/events
Presented by JCC Manhattan, ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival is the largest festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expressions of people with different abilities. The festival presents award-winning films in NY and 12 additional cities throughout the USA. Discussions and other engaging programs bring the community together to explore, discuss and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.
Leading the way in accessible film and culture, ReelAbilities is presented in all accessible venues, providing captions, audio description, ASL interpretation, CART (live captioning), and information in Braille.
Past festival guests include Sigourney Weaver, Mat Fraser, Geri Jewell, Danny Woodburn, John Hockenberry, Ben Lewin, and many others who have moderated and participated in post-screening conversations. These conversations are a core component of the festival, furthering audience understanding and consciousness about ideas raised in the films while providing a platform for in-depth discussions and audience interaction with filmmakers, actors, and issues portrayed in the films.
About The JCC in Manhattan
Located on 76th Street and Amsterdam, the JCC is a vibrant non-profit community center on the Upper West Side. The cornerstone of progressive programming in Manhattan, the JCC serves over 55,000 people annually through 1,200 programs each season that educate, inspire, and transform participants' minds, bodies, and spirits. Since its inception, the JCC has been committed to serving the community by offering programs and services that reach beyond neighborhood boundaries. Programs at the JCC reach people at all stages of their lives, and serve the entire family and community.
REELABILITIES: NY DISABILITIES FILM FESTIVAL
Official Selections – 2015
Synopses and Film Information
MAIN SLATE
AUTISTIC LIKE ME: A FATHER’S PERSPECTIVE
Dir. Charles Jones
(82 min, USA, 2014, Documentary)
A candid portrait of the fathers and male caregivers of children with autism. Dispelling the “big boys don’t cry” myth, a group of fathers open up to each other about the parenting experience very different than the ones they had envisioned.
THE CASE OF THE THREE SIDED DREAM
Dir. Adam Kahan
(USA, 88 min, 2014, Documentary)
This film tells the story of Jazz legend Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who was known for playing multiple instruments at once, for his comical and political interjections on stage, and for creating music about becoming blind as an infant.
ENDLESS ABILITIES
Dir. Harvey Burrell, Tripp Clemens
(2013, USA, 72 min, Documentary)
Best friends with spinal cord injuries drive across the country in search of adaptive sports for individuals with physical disabilities, joining many people from rehabilitation patients to Paralympic athletes in a wide range of sports.
THE FINISHERS
Dir. Nils Tavernier
(95 min, France/Belgium, 2013, Narrative)
At 17 years old, Julien has a great sense of humor, loads of charm — and cerebral palsy. In a bid to bond with his distant father, Paul, Julien challenges him to competing together in the Ironman triathlon in Nice, France — a near impossible feat.
GABRIEL
Dir. Lou Howe
(USA, 87 min, 2014, Narrative)
Gabriel (Rory Culkin) longs for stability and happiness amidst an ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder. Convinced that reuniting with his ex-girlfriend is the key, Gabriel tests the limits of his family in a desperate and increasingly obsessive pursuit.
JON IMBER’S LEFT HAND
Dir. Richard Kane
(USA, 63 min, 2014, Documentary)
When ALS began to affect artist Jon Imber, he switched from painting with his right hand to his left, and then with both hands at his waist. Imber’s paintings and intimate conversations with his wife reveal his fears as his degenerative condition worsens.
KEEP ROLLIN’
Dir. Stefan Hillebrand, Oliver Paulus
(Switzerland/Germany, 95 min, 2013, Narrative)
The story of a guy who is fed up with being in a group home, having to use a wheelchair, and the fact that his caretaker is in a relationship with a sleazy man, named Marc. When he just can’t take it anymore, he plots how to rob the gas station where Marc works.
LOGIN2LIFE
Dir. Daniel Moshel
(86 min, USA, 2012, Documentary)
A fascinating look at the growing number of people who are spending much of their lives in online virtual worlds. For many people with disabilities, these worlds open up new paths for friendships, employment and sexual exploration.
MARIE’S STORY
Dir. Jean-Pierre Améris
(France, 95 min, 2014, Narrative)
Based on real-life events, this is the story of Marie, a deaf and blind fourteen-year-old girl. At the Larnay Institute, Sister Marguerite, a young nun, takes Marie under her wing and encourages her to communicate with the world around her.
MIMI AND DONA
Dir. Sophie Sartain
(2014, 66 min, USA, Documentary)
92-year-old Mimi, has cared for Dona, her daughter who has an intellectual disability, for 64 years. Aging means facing the fact that she will not outlive her daughter. The film spotlights the challenges of aging caregivers and the ripple effects of Dona’s disability on three generations of a Texas family.
NO ORDINARY HERO: THE SUPERDEAFY STORY
Dir. Troy Kotsur
(78 min, USA, 2013, Narrative)
Tony Kane plays a superhero on television, but in real life he’s just another guy who happens to be deaf. Eight-year-old Jacob Lang, is also deaf and is having a hard time. When Tony and Jacob’s paths cross, they inspire belief in each other and in themselves.
THE SPECIAL NEED
Dir. Carlo Zoratti
(Italy/Germany/Austria/France, 84 min, 2013, Documentary)
28-year-old Enea is looking for love — physical love that is. But as Enea has autism, and lives in Italy, finding it is anything but easy. So he and his best friends set out on a journey through Europe. They eventually find a lot more than they had hoped.
SHORTS
THE ASTRONAUT'S SECRET
Dir. Zach Jankovic
(USA, 30 min, Documentary)
In 1996, during a NASA Space Shuttle Mission, Michael “Rich” Clifford performed the first American spacewalk while docked at the Mir Space Station. Fifteen years later, Rich Clifford reveals that he had Parkinson’s disease while performing that spacewalk and that NASA knew of his ailment.
COACHING COLBURN
Dir. Jeff Bemiss and Trinity College Film Class
(USA, 16 min, Documentary)
James Colburn was born with Fragile X Syndrome. At 26, he is a child at heart who finds joy in small things and uses his gift of comedic timing to inspire those around him.
GUEST ROOM
Dir. Joshua Tate
(USA, 14 min, Narrative)
A young woman with Down Syndrome grapples with her identity and her potential as a mother after an unplanned pregnancy with her boyfriend. Starring Lauren Potter from Glee.
THE GIFT
Dir. Spencer Harvey and Lloyd Harvey
(Australia, 16 min, Narrative)
Grace is forced to face her own sexuality and the strain on her marriage when her son Charlie, who has cerebral palsy, asks to lose his virginity for his birthday.
HEAR THIS!
Dir. Soulaima El Khaldi
(Netherlands, 15 min, Documentary)
10-year-old Tristan looks up to his dad, his soccer hero. But Tristan’s soccer club won’t let his dad become the trainer of his team because he is deaf. Tristan decides to prove them wrong.
THE HYPERGLOT
Dir. Michael Urie
(USA, 25 min, Narrative)
Jake speaks many languages but when it comes to the language of love he has a lot to learn.
THE KISS
Dir. Charlie Swinbourne
(UK, 7 min, Narrative)
When a couple on a first date strikes up a conversation with the couple on the next table, they find themselves witnessing a very unusual kiss.
ON BEAUTY
Dir. Joanna Rudnick
(USA/Kenya, 30 min, Documentary)
Photographer Rick Guidotti left the fashion world when he grew frustrated with having to work within the restrictive parameters of the industry’s standard of beauty and re-focused his lens on those too often relegated to the shadows.
SUPER
Dir. Samara Hersch
(Australia, 6 min, Narrative)
A mockumentary in which a supermarket manager saves the business when he discovers his employees with disabilities have super powers.
MIDFIELD
Dir. Pedro Amorim
(Portugal, 6 min, Narrative)
A gorgeously realized profile of an ordinary workday in the life of a stevedore, who executes his job with surprising grace and simplicity — but when Sunday comes, an altogether different man emerges.
RIDING MY WAY BACK
Dir. Robin Fryday
(USA, 29 min, Documentary)
When Staff Sergeant Aaron Heliker returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, third-degree burns, and nerve damage, he was introduced to the unlikeliest of saviors: a horse named Fred.
ROLLING ROMANCE
Dir. David Conley
(USA, 28 min, Narrative)
Orson and Janice, two twenty-somethings with muscular dystrophy, go on an Internet date.
Q FILM
Dir. Alice Elliot
(USA, 2 min, Documentary)
A man enters a pool area, gets out of his wheelchair, and goes for a swim.