Community Cinema Screens The Eyes of Me in Houston

Last night, Community Cinema hosted a screening of the Independent Lens film The Eyes of Me at HoustonPBS. The film follows four visually impaired teenagers in Texas as they face the usual challenges of adolescence while simultaneously learning to navigate a world designed for the sighted. Filmmaker Keith Maitland attended the screening and gives an overview of what happened and the impact the event below.

Patrick Floyd (left), the producer of The Eyes of Me, and Keith Maitland (right), the director, at the HoustonPBS Community Cinema Screening of their film.

Bernice Klepac, with the Houston Council for the Blind, talks about her experience as a student at Texas School for the Blind back in the 1950s.

With more than 125 audience members in attendance –– many of them blind or visually-impaired –– HoustonPBS hosted a wonderful Community Cinema screening of The Eyes of Me. It’s always exciting for me to be able to sit in a crowded theater and share the film with a new audience but there was something very special about this particular screening. Along with producer Patrick Floyd, I was happy to travel to Houston from Austin, Texas, to experience Community Cinema firsthand. Meagan McComic (one of the main characters from the film) and Bill Daugherty, superintendent of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI), joined Patrick and I on the panel after the film, to share their reflections and perspectives with the Houston community –– many of whom had ties to TTSBVI directly.

Two of the audience members were alumni of TSBVI –– Michael Garrett, class of ’69, and Bernice Klepak, class of ’55. It was exciting to hear Michael and Bernice’s response to the film, and the contrasts between their days at the school and the stories of Chas, Meagan, Denise, and Isaac represented in the film. Bernice was impressed with how honest and natural today’s students were compared to her days when she feels that they were all “pretty straight-laced.”

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Tags: blind, disability, disability rights, Texas, visually impaired

BODY AND SOUL: Diana and Kathy, Airing This Month on Public Television

“It’s unlikely that any movie released this year will feature characters more remarkable than Kathy Conour and Diana Braun. The subjects of a moving new documentary from director Alice Elliott, the unlikely cinematic heroes are waging a war for their lives––and the lives of many others.”
- Journal News (Lower Hudson Valley, NY)

When they met 37 years ago, Diana and Kathy faced early death or a restricted life in a nursing home. Instead, they slipped out of the “system,” became advocates for all people with disabilities and began a grand experiment in living meaningful, independent lives. BODY AND SOUL: Diana and Kathy is an exploration of the remarkable bond that has made that possible.

BODY AND SOUL: Diana and Kathy airs this month on public television (check local listings).

Editor’s note: Kathy Conour, one of the main characters of the film, recently passed away. Born with Cerebral Palsy, Kathy had some mobility but lost that when she had an operation on a spinal cyst in 1990. Kathy was a leader and an activist for disability rights. She served on the board of United Cerebral Palsy of Illinois and was active in the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Illinois Center for Independent Living, and People First.

Kathy and Diana met Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker Alice Elliott in 2003 and convinced her to make a film about them. BODY AND SOUL: Diana and Kathy will air this month on Public Television during National Disabilities Awareness Month. Having her story told was a life-long dream of Kathy’s. She loved being the star of the documentary and helped move it forward, encouraging the filmmaker to push through to the finish. This film has won many honors both in the film community and the area of disabilities. Kathy’s dream is still playing out as the film screens in North Carolina, Munich, Germany and Salt Lake City within the next few months.

Her humor, intelligence, gracious thoughtfulness and candor will be missed.

Tags: activism, cerebral palsy, disability, down syndrome

Filmmaker Keith Maitland Reflects on World Premiere at SXSW

Filmmaker Keith Maitland

Opening night of THE EYES OF ME at SXSW.

Today is just one day in the three and a half year journey that has been THE EYES OF ME. It’s a day that I haven’t given myself permission to spend too much time thinking about––just one day after its world premiere at South by Southwest (SXSW).

THE EYES OF ME is a documentary that follows the lives of four blind teens in Austin, Texas. All four teens in the film had sight, but lost it during their teenage years. The film alternates between verité footage and dreamlike segments of rotoscopic animation in an effort to show the universal high school drama of teenage life while exploring questions of perception and identity. The transformative animated segments were created in collaboration with animators Jason Archer and Paul Beck in consultation with the teens; they are their inner-visions of the outer world.

Throughout SXSW, in panels and cocktail party conversations, much of the focus has been on building audiences and thinking of new models of distribution. Audience building is something that my producing partner Patrick Floyd and I have been really excited about. With a film like THE EYES OF ME, there is a fairly obvious and large niche audience––but the challenge is in connecting with them. With all the talk of new models and hybrid distribution deals, I’ve come to believe that a national broadcast on PBS is still the number one way to connect on a large scale with an audience that should see this film.

Last night is still a little hazy (especially the end of the night, which found us celebrating on a pontoon boat in Lake Austin at 3:00 AM, but that’s for a different blog). I can’t begin to describe what it felt like to have the 250-seat theater sell out and turn away more than 150 people still waiting in line. I thought I’d be thrilled to send so many folks away––a real mark of success. But in the moment, it was really quite sad. So many people wanted to attend the world premiere and they just couldn’t. I gave up my seat so that one extra person could see it and it felt great.

Today has been an amazing day. Like I said, I never really allowed myself to think about what it would feel like to get to this moment. There were times when I thought it would never come. I’m sure the good folks at ITVS shared that concern from time to time too. But it’s certainly not the last great day that THE EYES OF ME will give back to me. I don’t plan on sitting around thinking about it, but today for five minutes I did imagine a day sometime in the future, a day like today but a whole lot bigger––that would be the day when THE EYES OF ME airs on PBS. That will be the day when nobody will be turned away at the door.

Wow. We’re going to need a bigger pontoon boat!

- Keith

Tags: disability, film festival, SXSW

Filmmaker Profile: David Herman, FAIR PLAY

David Herman, producer/director of FAIR PLAY.

Cast members Andrew and Ben.

David Herman says that while the setting and tenor of his documentary FAIR PLAY are located in England, the story’s themes are universal. The film revolves around a troupe of actors with learning disabilities, filmed throughout the production of The Choice, an acclaimed play about abortion. Against the backdrop of rehearsals, the players confront the painful subject matter and the challenges of being different.

As an independent producer and farmer who lives in a community with adults with learning disabilities in England, Herman says his intentions went beyond telling a story, to provide a voice for the people he has come to know well. “The eccentric Englishness of the cast blurs the distinctions between what is considered ‘normal’ and what is not, adding to the experience of confronting prejudices.”

But the challenges of reaching the U.S. market as an independent producer abroad proved enormous––even for Herman, who is originally from South Africa and has produced news stories and independent documentaries around the world since the early 1980s. ITVS International, with its targeted outreach to non-U.S. producers, was “a godsend,” he says. “From program content, deliverables, promotion and finding a broadcaster, the road had been prepared.”

Herman believes that these tough economic times only add to the need for American audiences to be exposed to issues beyond the borders of the United States. “The understanding of the interlinked nature of our Global Village is fundamental to making our way through these complex times. This, of course, is taking place in an environment of shrinking opportunities for documentaries of this kind to find any funding. The collaborative international co-production budgets––ITVS helps to enable––are critical to keeping these vital international voices alive.”

Support from ITVS International makes connecting to U.S. viewers a lot easier, Herman says. “Storytelling is the air I breathe. The chance of finding an audience for a documentary about a subject I believe in passionately is sufficient to tilt against windmills of any dimensions. The only disheartening part of the process is that it is becoming more complex to find ways to reach those audiences while sustaining the means of production. However, as long as there remain interesting stories to be told and people who wish to see them, dedicated filmmakers will meet the challenge. Thanks ITVS for the help! ”

FAIR PLAY aired on the Documentary Channel in January 2009. It is now available for download through ITVS’s digital partners.

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Check out the video preview below:

Tags: abortion, disability, England