RealAbilities: The First Annual NY Disabilities Film Festival
Accessible for those with Disabilities… and those Without

It was a major event – seven top quality and provocative feature length films, two shorts, forty screenings over three days at 14 locations in eight counties from Westchester to Suffolk, each with a follow-up panel discussion featuring film makers from around the world. 

No, it was’t Cannes or the Tribecca Film Festival.  In some ways it was even bigger.  Why?  Because “RealAbilities: The First Annual NY Disabilities Film Festival” was about more than just cinema.  It was also an exploration and celebration of the lives -- the real lives -- of people with disabilities.  And, it was a festival that was truly open and accessible, not just to those who required wheelchair access, but even more importantly for those in the broader community who rarely are offered an opportunity to share the lives and experiences of their differently-abled neighbors.

RealAbilites was presented by JCC in Manhattan and sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York. It is certainly unusual, if not unique, in both the number and quality of its films by and about individuals with disabilities, and, the range of community locations at which they were shown. 

The festival’s menu of offerings included critically acclaimed films from Belgium, United Kingdom, Israel, Canada and the United States.  Actors ranged from icons of the disabilities cinema world such as Matt Frazer in “Every Time You Look at Me” to Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver who played a woman with high-functioning autism in “Snow Cake”.

RealAbilities is an outgrowth and an extension of UJA’s efforts over the past decade to strengthen the capacity of its network agencies to serve individuals with disabilities within their community programs.   “Our agency’s community centers are an opportunity for people to be part of their neighborhoods,” says Anita Altman, Deputy Managing Director of Government Relations of UJA and Founder of the RealAbilities Film Festival. 

A few years ago, Altman met a young filmmaker, Ilana Trachtman, and helped her raise funding for “Praying with Lior”  which tells the story of a 13-year-old Philadelphia boy with Down syndrome in the months leading up to his Bar Mitzvah. “I could see from this experience the impact that a film can have in reaching the hearts and minds of people who see it.”  Last August, she approached Isaac Zablocki, Director of Film and Literary Programs, at JCC in Manhattan with the idea for a festival.  “That is how it began,” says Altman. “It has come really far in a very short period of time.”

While the festival organizers are certainly pleased to be showcasing the films, the real impetus was public education and raising the general level of consciousness about the lives of people with disabilities.  To broaden its reach, the Festival offered its program of films free of charge to community partners for screenings and discussions.  Many of the partnering organizations were those who have participated for years in the UJA Disabilities Task Force. Community groups would be responsible for selecting a venue and doing community marketing and outreach.  

“One of the conditions of participating in the film was that each screening needed to have a ‘talk back’ at the end, some conversation that left people stimulated to think more,” said Altman.  The post screening panels feature both the film makers and stars – Matt Frazer, Sigourney Weaver, Nic Balthazar who directed the Belgian film “BenX”, and many others – as well as individuals with disabilities and representatives of partnering community organizations. 

“After a screening of ‘Silent Games’, a film about the Israeli national deaf soccer team, there was a panel discussion and I suddenly realized that the translator was there as much for the benefit of audience members who could hear as those who were deaf,” says Altman. “She was translating a very lively conversation that was taking place in sign language among panel members for the larger audience.”

“There have been festivals in London and Canada and other places but I think a lot of those efforts have been focused primarily on people with disabilities,” says Lawrence Carter Long, Director of Advocacy at the Disabilities Network of New York and organizer of that organization’s regular DisThis! Film Series.  “What is unique about RealAbilities is that it utilizes that core constituency, but it reaches out beyond it.  It makes it really approachable and accessible in all aspects of those words so that people can see the full spectrum of how disabilities are part of the larger community.”

As we went to press, the festival had just gotten underway.  Over 200 people attended the formal September 21st opening at the JCC of Manhattan which featured a screening of “War Eagle, Arkansas” -- a U.S. film by Robert Milazzo that tells the story of friendship between Enoch Cass, a star pitcher with a debilitating stutter, and Samuel “Wheels” Macon, his best friend with cerebral palsy.  “It was very well received,” says Altman.  “At the same time, screenings were also taking place at locations across the metropolitan area.”

Abilities Inc. on Long Island, for example, was holding evening screenings on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for community members and its own consumers.  “On Monday during the day we also are having an inclusive viewing where we are bringing high school students with severe physical and medical disabilities from the Henry Viscardi School and a peer group without disabilities from Great Neck High School,” says Fran Presant, Senior Vice President.  “That will be followed by a discussion with one of our school counselors.”   The students saw “Special People”, a British comedy by Justin Edgar about a neurotic filmmaker enlisted to teach a class of streetwise teenagers in wheelchairs.  Edgar, himself, was one of several Festival filmmakers to take part in post screening panel discussions. “He was terrific,” said Prezant.

“There has been tremendous excitement,” says Altman. “People are already talking about what we should be doing next year.”

The Community Partners
• Abilities! (Albertson);
• The JCC in Manhattan;
• JCC on the Hudson (Tarrytown);
• Hostos Community College (Bronx);
• Brooklyn Borough Hall;
• Bellmore Movies (Bellmore);
• Cinema Arts Centre (Huntington);
• JCC of Mid-Westchester
(Scarsdale);
• Rosenthal JCC (Pleasantville);
• Riverdale Y;
• Brooklyn College;
• JCC of Staten Island;
• Long Island University – Brooklyn Campus;
• North Shore Towers

The Films
• “War Eagle, Arkansas” by Robert Milazzo;
• “Ben X” by Nic Balthazar
• “Every Time You Look at Me” by Alrick Riley;
• “Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott” by Betsy Bayha;
• “Shameless: The Art of Disability” by Bonnie Sherr Klein
• “Silent Games” by Yael Klopmann;
• “Snow Cake” by Marc Evans;
• “Special People” Justin Edgar;
• “Stubborn and Spite” by Lou Birks;