Mothersbane

Mothersbane has been awarded the prize for Best 10-to-30 Minute Documentary at the Picture This International Disability Film Festival is Calgary, Alberta. The festival will be held during the week of February 11-18th, 2011. I’m honored by the recognition and grateful to festival director Sheryl Lenthall and the Picture This jury.

Marwencol is a moving documentary about a man struggling with the physical and emotional aftermath of a brutal assault. His unique form of personal therapy, the way in which he takes control of his world and makes it safe, is breathtaking in scope and beauty. I was fortunate enough to see it at the Focus Film Festival this year. Marwencol has made the rounds of the festival circuit and is now starting to appear in theaters (SF Landmark and Berkeley Shattuck in December). Check it out if you get a chance.

Good news - Mothersbane was awarded 1st place in the “Emerging Filmmaker” category at the Cinema Touching Disability film festival on October 14th in Austin, Texas. The award came with a $500 check, which will promptly be dumped into DVD duplication costs. Thanks to the Cinema Touching Disability organization and congrats to the other participants!

For those of you who may have come across this website because of an interest in disability issues, I want to share a film that I was a part of this past summer – a documentary called Independence in Sight. It was made by my students at The Factory, the after-school program I run, about an amazing institution called The Hatlen Center for the Blind. Hatlen is a year-long immersive training program where young people develop the independence they need to live on their own by living in an apartment and taking living skills classes from the Hatlen instructors. Click here to see the video.