Chas

CHAS -
Chas and his girlfriend Ashley had a baby boy, Chas Jr., in December of 2008. Chas Jr. was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma, the same cancer of the retina that his mother Ashley had as a child. Chas Jr. spent much of 2009 undergoing chemotherapy and doctors are hopeful that he will be cancer-free and that they were able to save some of his sight. Chas Sr. continues to struggle from month to month with bills and the rigors of being an independent young adult and family man. He has worked off and on at the Lighthouse for the Blind and the only real constant for him has been his music. One2Cee plans to release some new music in conjunction with the release of The Eyes Of Me. Chas has yet to complete his GED.

Denise

DENISE -
During her sophomore year, Denise’s mother decided to bring her back to Dallas to attend her zoned high school. This arrangement didn’t work out too well for Denise and she ended up leaving that school as well. Denise lives with her mother and little sister – she still sings in her church choir and is taking some life skills classes and is looking for the right job training program.

Meagan

MEAGAN -
Meagan continues to take core curriculum classes at Austin Community College and she continues to achieve all A’s and B’s. Meagan began working part-time at Texas School for the Blind students (TSBVI) as a substitute teacher and has since been hired on full-time as a Resident Advisor. On a daily basis, Meagan is working with teen girls in the TSBVI dorms, serving as a role model to students only a couple of years her junior. She plans to continue for another year or two before trying to transfer to a four-year school to complete her Bachelor’s before pursuing a Master’s and a career as a licensed professional counselor.

Isaac

ISAAC -
Isaac moved to Fort Worth, Texas, for his final two years of high school. He has matured a lot and had many successes, graduating in May of 2009. Isaac and his Seeing Eye dog, Rolex, are currently living in Austin where he is strengthening his independent living skills at an adult rehab center and his goal is to attend a four-year university next year.

Learn more about the film >>

How do you see yourself, when you can’t see at all? At the Texas School for the Blind students juggle all the usual pressures of high school along with the added struggles of growing up blind. Spend a dynamic year with four blind teens learning how to fit in and live independently. Forced to confront the world without sight, they share their inner visions of the outer world. Ultimately, you cannot understand their perceptions without challenging your own.

Check out a preview of tonight’s broadcast below:

The Eyes of Me premieres tonight, March 2, at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

Busboys and Poets owner Andy Shallal holds up both the Braille and printed versions of the restaurant menus.

Community Cinema DC and Busboys and Poets decided The Eyes of Me event would be the perfect time to introduce braille menus. Busboys and Poets is a restaurant/performance space located in the historic U Street corridor of Washington, DC and named for the famous Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes’ who was discovered in the capital city while working as a busboy at a hotel.

Owner Andy Shallal said he attended The Eyes of Me event to get a better understanding of the perspectives of blind and visually impaired persons in social interactions.

Busboys and Poets has been hosting Community Cinema in the Langston Room for nearly five seasons. The introduction of Braille menus is yet another effort to bring more communities to Busboys and Poets and our Community Cinema events.

Read more about these screenings on the Community Cinema blog >>

The panel –– organized to represent an intergenerational view on being blind –– shared personal experiences as compared to those in the film.

The lobby of the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia was bustling with activity, as volunteers gathered for the Community Cinema screening of
The Eyes of Me.

Fran Fulton, a staff person with Liberty Resources, Inc. (a partner in presenting the event) was busy training a Villanova University sorority on how to serve as sighted guides. Fulton, who is blind, reminded the volunteers that some of the most basic things that sighted people take for granted are important to remember when assisting blind people, such as telling them which direction the seat is facing, and placing the hand of the blind person on the seat in front of them as a way to guide them into an available chair, which may be four or five seats down the row.

Audio describers from Amaryllis Theatre Company were setting up equipment for live audio description, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters from the Deaf-Hearing Communication Center were getting acquainted with the space and ready to provide sign language interpretation for the panel discussion taking place after the film.

The crowd was welcomed by Gerry Kitzhoffer, principal of Overbrook School for the Blind (OSB), who also introduced the panel afterwards, which included OSB senior Traniece Johnson and alumni Donal Buie; independent living services supervisor at Liberty Resources, Inc. Cecelia Ramatsingh and moderator, Bill Chrisner from the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. The panel –– organized to represent an intergenerational view on being blind –– shared personal experiences as compared to those in the film. Comments touched on the importance of private education for the blind to support social development, but also the hope that one day the public school system might offer a more well rounded curriculum for people living with disabilities so that success with integration and mainstreaming might be achieved.

Audience questions further engaged the panelists around these issues, and also extended to inquiries about how the community at large might find opportunities to engage with the school.

In closing the panel, Cecelia Ramatsingh offered these words “Let us continue to strive for justice for all (especially people with disabilities) and independent living for all.” And Bill Chrisner followed up by impressing upon the crowd to “Be proud of who you are. We who have disabilities do not overcome them, we succeed with our differences and they are a part of who we are. It’s the prejudice and discrimination we run into that we overcome.”

Last night’s event was a coordinated effort on the part of all the event partners to bring the public together with people living with disabilities to increase awareness and also to provide broader access to cultural events for guests with disabilities –– an endeavor that we at Community Cinema hope to continue to offer in the future.

Cindy Burstein
Regional Outreach Coordinator

In this video extra, a new student at the school, Denise, explores a brand new store in the neighborhood and learns to navigate on her own, with the help of a coach.

The Eyes of Me airs next Tuesday, March 2, at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

Learn more about The Eyes of Me >>

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.”

Meagan McComic (right), one of the subjects of The Eyes of Me, with her mom at the HoustonPBS Community Cinema screening.

At this screening, as we have done at all of our festival screenings before this, we were able to offer live audio description through the use of wireless receivers and transmitters. This system (provided by a grant from the Austin Film Society) gives blind and visually-impaired audience members the opportunity to hear an additional audio track that offers visual information, and reads onscreen text, so that users can experience the film as fully as any audience member. Use of this technology offers accessibility and also educates sighted audience members about accessibility. It’s not surprising that most people have never heard of or considered audio description, we didn’t know about it before making the film either, but I’m happy to be an advocate for accessible media and accessible websites too! (Our website, http://EyesofMe.com, is fully accessible via use of screen reading software, and we offer a fully accessible trailer that is both audio described, and open captioned for the hearing impaired.)

What made Community Cinema such a great screening event was that the audience was so active and engaged. The Q&A following the film was a mixture of questions and comments about the film, the specific characters and stories, as well as how themes within the film affected the local community. It was exactly what we’ve hoped Community Cinema would be –– it was wonderful.

Thanks so much HoustonPBS, Independent Lens, ITVS, and all the great volunteers that are making these events possible!

Keith Maitland
Filmmaker of The Eyes of Me

Learn more about upcoming Community Cinema screenings near you >>

Find local broadcast listings of Independent Lens >>