Families & the Community

Disabilities on the Silver Screen

By Christina A. Samuels — April 29, 2008 1 min read
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Readers who will be in New York May 9-11 should check out the Sprout Film Festival, a three day showing of films by and about people with disabilities.

The first day features “Including Samuel,” a movie I didn’t get a chance to see when it was shown in the D.C. area., unfortunately. The documentary, filmed by photojournalist Dan Habib, shows a family’s efforts to involve their son Samuel, who has cerebral palsy, in every part of educational and social life. The last day of the festival will include a showing of “Autism: The Musical,” which was recently broadcast on HBO.

Several other short films and documentaries look fascinating, like a 1970 documentary, “A Time for Georgia,” about a girl with autism—I’d love to know what we thought of the disorder at that time, compared to now. “Fathers’ Voices” is a short film on how men are affected by children with disabilities.

If anyone happens to catch any of these showings, feel free to leave a comment.

A version of this news article first appeared in the On Special Education blog.