Powerful documentaries that celebrate the full identities of characters with disabilities.

About the Film: Iron Sharpens Iron profiles the rivalry between two of the best wheelchair basketball players in the world. Steve Serio, Team USA, and Patrick Anderson, Team Canada, have won gold medals at five of the last six Paralympic Games. The film explores how they have overcome extraordinary challenges to compete on the world stage. Through highlighting the capabilities of adaptive sports athletes, it challenges perceptions about what someone with a disability can do. About the Filmmaker: John Gallen is a documentary filmmaker and television producer based in New York City. He has worked on documentary series for TIME and National Geographic. <a href="https://www.johngallenfilm.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.johngallenfilm.com/</a>

Iron Sharpens Iron

Iron Sharpens Iron profiles the rivalry between two of the best wheelchair basketball players in the world. Through highlighting the capabilities of adaptive sports athletes, the film challenges perceptions about what someone with a disability can do.

About the Film: In the middle of the pandemic, Tyrese Allyene-Davis a disabled Black youth, celebrated his 21st birthday isolated in his NYU dorm room. Bound by his wheelchair and a brick wall facing window, his thoughts began sinking into spaces of despair following the murder of George Floyd. A few months later he watches the documentary film “I Am Not Your Negro” by Raoul Peck and is moved beyond tears by the power of James Baldwin's words. With no one to talk with, Tyrese pours his visceral feelings into an audio-only Facebook post, leaving his followers to question his state of mind, and the images behind his words. Having always been presented as the poster boy for disability excellence, it was the first time acknowledging himself as a Black disabled man took on a different life. About the Filmmaker: Adetoro Makinde is an award-winning, first-generation Nigerian-American filmmaker. A graduate of Georgetown University and Duke Ellington School of the Arts, she launched her company Backdoor Films and its social impact subsidiary, Hyphenate Africa, having produced and/or directed multiple film premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. Her portfolio of diverse projects spans from Golden Globe-nominated The Tale to social impact-focused narratives The Boy who Harnessed the Windand documentaries (Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski) with HBO, Participant Media, Netflix, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, respectively. She’s in pre-production on a Hurricane Katrina biopic, The American Can, previously optioned by Sony Entertainment to star Will Smith, and was recently named as a “Producer To Watch” by IMDbPro. <a href="http://www.BackdoorFilms.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.BackdoorFilms.com</a>

In the Wake of Mourning

Isolated in quarantine, a disabled Black youth celebrates his 21st birthday, when experiencing the mental unrest of racial protests finds his voice.

About the Film: A sleep away camp in Elgin, Texas gives adults with developmental disabilities the opportunity to escape societal barriers and have a good ol' time dancing, loving, and feeling free. About the Filmmaker: Riley Engemoen's and Liz Moskowitz's visual work aims to honor the dignity and nuance of people, places, and issues— they approach each individual and community that they document with intentionality and an open-mind. Their work individually and collectively has been recognized by SXSW, Austin Film Society, The Dallas Museum of Art, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

Down Home

A sleep away camp in Elgin, Texas gives adults with developmental disabilities the opportunity to escape societal barriers and have a good ol' time dancing, loving, and feeling free.

About the Film: Lydia Emily, and artist living with progressive MS, paints her last mural in downtown LA. About the Filmmaker: Christoph Green has been creating films and other media content in the DC area for the last 20 years. In 2004, he co-founded Trixie Film with Brendan Canty (Fugazi) to release the highly regarded Burn to Shine video series. He has co-produced and directed a long list of music-related films for artists such as Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Shellac, and Wilco. In addition to documentary film work, he has produced many nationally recognized commercials, public service campaigns, and corporate and non-profit branding campaigns. In 2018, Christoph and Julia Glazer released their acclaimed documentary The Liberation, a film about a class struggling through the life-changing Culinary Training Program at D.C. Central Kitchen. Christoph is currently developing Flux, a television series about gender, identity and love.﻿

Lydia Emily's Last Mural

Lydia Emily, an artist living with progressive MS, paints her last mural in downtown LA with the help of a truly diverse group of friends and family.

About the Film: About the Film: In rural Pakistan, families with disabled children have few options. Some desperate parents keep their children locked up or even chained. When athletic coaches from Karachi persuade the parents of three teenagers -- Ghulam, Sana, Sajawal – to allow the kids to participate in a sports training program as part of a Special Olympics initiative, the families glimpse the hope that living with disability doesn’t have to mean that their children are "useless." But they and the coaches must confront the question of what sports can—and cannot—change. Over a one-year period, Iranian-American filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian follows three disabled children and their families as they grapple with shame and prejudice in rural Pakistan to realize new talents and a sense of belonging through sports. Intimate and unflinching, hopeful and tragic, AS FAR AS THEY CAN RUN is a fascinating look at those who are struggling to find acceptance and worth in a society that had relegated them to the margins. About the Filmmaker: Tanaz Eshaghian is an Iranian-American, Emmy-nominated, documentary filmmaker whose career has spanned two decades. She left Iran with her mother at the age of six and grew up in New York City. In Love Iranian-American Style, completed in 2006, she filmed her traditional Iranian family, both in New York and Los Angeles, documenting their obsession with marrying her off and her own cultural ambivalence. For her début feature-length film, Be Like Others, a provocative look at men in Iran choosing to undergo sex change surgery, she returned to Iran for the first time in twenty-five years. Be Like Others, a BBC 2, France 5, ITVS production, premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Teddy special jury prize at the Berlinale - Berlin International Film Festival, and was nominated for an Emmy award. In 2011, she completed Love Crimes of Kabul, a documentary filmed inside a women’s prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, focusing on “moral crimes,” for HBO. In 2018, she directed The Last Refugees, followingone of the last Syrian refugee families allowed in the U.S. before President Trump’s Muslim travel ban. Her latest film, the 39-minute short subject documentary As Far As They Can Run, from MTV Documentary Films, is an intimate portrait of 3 intellectually disabled children in rural Pakistan who have been deemed "useless" by their communities and manage to find some acceptance and a place in society through sports.

As Far As They Can Run

An intimate, unflinching look at disabled children in rural Pakistan who have been deemed "useless" by their communities, As Far As They Can Run is a searing "verité" portrait of three young teenagers who manage to find acceptance and a place in society through sports.

About the Film: When Julia was born, doctors gave her only months to live. Her parents were told to "take her off the ventilator and let her go." Nevertheless, they refused to give up on their little princess. Julia beat the odds and survived, but after two years in a medical facility she was still not eating, talking, or moving at all. In a drastic leap of faith, parents Marcelo and Milene took their daughter home and enrolled her in a unique hippotherapy (therapy that utilizes horses) program at the nonprofit Special Strides. Despite their disbelief, they hoped against hope that this would be the key to bringing their precious Julia to life. About the Filmmaker: Jenna A. Bush is a documentary filmmaker and editor from NJ specializing in films for nonprofits. Previous credits include the feature Mallory, the docuseries Ashes to Ash, the short Minor DetailsS, and a multitude of other shorts. Jenna describes her editing approach as painting with emotion, heartfelt intuition being the brush. As a filmmaker, she strives to capture the essence of subjects and showcase their emanating inner light. Jenna is passionate about films that widen perspectives, challenge beliefs, and inspire compassion and personal growth.

Hello To Julia

When Julia was born, doctors gave her only months to live. Her parents were told to "take her off the ventilator and let her go." At 2 years old, she still could not move, eat, or speak until the miraculous combination of horses and therapy brings her to life.

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