After being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and rendered almost completely paralyzed, a graffiti artist regains his voice through technology that reads the movement of his eyes and enables him to create art and write once again.
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Flying Anne
Looking at 11-year-old Anne riding her bike, climbing fences or jumping on the trampoline, you see a normal, cheerful girl. But not everything is as it seems. Anne has Tourette syndrome, which means she sometimes has to spin around in circles (always to the right) or lick everything in sight. That might be a tomato while doing the grocery shopping, but it could also be the cash register or a redeemable bottle. Anne is ashamed of her behavior – she wants to be able to explain what’s wrong with her and does her best to keep her tics under wraps for an entire school day. Longer than that is just too hard: “Like when you’re underwater and you need to take a breath, that’s how it feels.” In addition to her tics, Anne is also more emotional than other kids her age. “When I get mad, I get three times as mad as you do.” Despite her problem, Anne does what she can to go through life as normally as possible. She enjoys playing with her friends, who know her and don’t require any explanations. “They don’t even notice it anymore.”
Lost and Sound
1 in 7 of us will experience some kind of deafness in our lifetime. So what would happen
to the music you love, if your hearing was lost? Made by a partially deaf filmmaker after
the future of her own hearing was called into doubt, Lost and Sound is a moving and
fascinating documentary that follows music critic Nick Coleman, dancer Emily Thornton
and pianist Holly Loach over 2 years, as they journey deep into sound and silence to rediscover music after deafness. The film weaves its way through a startling world of
altered sound. It combines intimate filming with original animation, a rich musical
soundtrack (often manipulated to reveal what deafness actually sounds like), and new
insights from the world’s top neuroscientists, to tell the story of the great human love
affair with music.
Featuring: New York Times bestseller Dr David Eagleman, composer Professor Nigel
Osborne, Dr Katie Overy, Professor David Huron, Dr Robert Zatorre and science writer
Philip Ball.
Sounds for Mazin
The Sudanese/Dutch Mazin (12) is deaf from the day he was born. But now he faces an
operation that is supposed to make him hear.Excited about all the new things he might
discover, Mazin is looking forward to it. How will a dog sound? And fishes, do they make
any noise? But he keeps on having second thoughts. For one of his closest classmates
a similar operation turned out to be a disaster. And even if he succeeds, the world as he
knows it might never be the same again, he feares. Will he get used to this whole new
universe, or will it make him go crazy?
Little World
Albert loves life, and he won’t let anything get in his way, least of all his wheelchair. He’s
only 19, but he’s already traveled to dozens of countries. He’s made a sport of leaving
with only 20 euros in his pocket and putting his faith in the innate goodness of people he
meets along the way. And he has plenty of other tricks up his sleeve to get into places
free of charge if he needs to. This time, his destination is as far away as possible from
his home in Barcelona: a lighthouse in New Zealand. For the first time, he will not be
alone, because his girlfriend Anna will be joining him. It’s impossible to hitchhike with a
camera team in your wake, so they decide to film their adventures themselves. They
experience plenty of amazing stuff, but sometimes things get tough, especially for Anna,
who can’t always keep up with Albert. They have agreed that the filmmakers will join
them in New Zealand for the last part of their trip. Through interviews with his
grandmother, stepmother and father, we discover that this irrepressibly optimistic young
man had a pretty tough time as a boy. He and his father have dealt with his problem in a
remarkable way. With animations in the background, Anna’s parents and various
members of Albert’s family explain why they let them go on this journey.
The Commute
A wheelchair user tries to get home using public transportation _ and finds himself on an arduous journey.
Wretches & Jabberers
Two men with autism_an accomplished artist and an activist_embark on a global
quest to change attitudes about autism and intelligence. Tracy Thresher and
Larry Bissonnette travel to Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland, dissecting, challenging,
and reshaping public conceptions along the way.
Sensory Overload
Some people with autism have difficulty processing intense, multiple sensory experiences at once. This animation gives the viewer a glimpse into sensory overload, and how often our sensory experiences intertwine in everyday life.
Created as part of Mark Jonathan Harris’ and Marhsa Kinder’s “Interacting with Autism.” Coming in January 1st 2013, IWA is a three-year transmedia project funded by the federal Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ). University Professor Marsha Kinder, the Executive Director of the Labyrinth Project at USC, and Mark Harris are heading a team of filmmakers and artists working to build an interactive, video intensive website that will focus on the best available treatments for autism.
Keep The Change (short)
A coming-of-age love story about
a wealthy young man with social disorders who meets a woman at a group for
people with intellectual disabilities.
Midfield
In Lisbon’s port, the world’s midfield, a group of stevedores carries out another day of work. What appears to be just a group of colleagues reveals itself as an example of unity and friendship. In the story’s midfield, there’s Paulo, the stevedore, the captain. An ordinary man with an extraordinary strength.
