A stop-motion animated film illustrating a child with dyslexia’s experience in the classroom, and the difference made by understanding teachers who make that extra effort.
Filmmaker Bio
Krista is a puppet artist, filmmaker, and all around lover of the arts. In 2016 she obtained her Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut in Puppet Arts. Since that time she has been working at Animax Designs in Nashville, Tennessee, where she helps bring animatronic, puppet, and costume characters to life every day as a Figure Finisher. In her free time she pursues writing and illustrating for children’s books.
Laurel, a blind, hardworking, Syrian asylum-seeker, makes a life for himself in the U.S. as his family waits in Turkey for their own visas.
Accessibility aids thanks to support from AppNexus.
Filmmaker Bio
Arpita Aneja is a video journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked for TIME magazine more than three years and has made countless news videos and short documentaries for time.com.
A day in the life of an elderly Alzheimer’s patient, experiencing nearly everything for the first time, including his own descent into dementia.
At a unique after school dance program in Queens, kids with a variety of physical and developmental challenges pair with teenage volunteer helpers to create an inclusive environment too often absent in our world.
Filmmaker Bio
Catherine Tambini is an award-winning filmmaker who lives in NYC. Her directing and producing credits include Sundance Film Festival award winner and Independent Spirit Award nominee Farmingville (PBS’s POV); Academy Award®-nominee Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse (PBS’s Great Performances/Dance in America); CINE Golden Eagle Award winner and Imagen Award nominee The State of Arizona (PBS’s Independent Lens); Hate Rising With Jorge Ramos (HBO & Univision) for which she received the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s Impact Award for Outstanding Documentary; and Art and Heart: The World of Isaiah Sheffer, which premiered at the New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Ms. Tambini is the recipient of many grants including multiple grants from the Sundance Institute and the MacArthur Foundation. She holds a BFA from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
A casualty of the decades-long fighting in Colombia, 10-year-old Eduardo lost his leg after stepping on a landmine. Deposited by his impoverished parents at a children’s home, he and his friends secretly practice to compete in a children’s soccer tournament to avoid the wrath of the home’s tyrannical director.
Accessibility aids thanks to support from Pfizer.
Filmmaker Bio
Henry Rincón was born in Medellin, Colombia on September 20th, 1984. He studied acting for theater and film, and in 2011, he created the Héroe Films company where he has focused on developing films with a social impact, such as Hero Steps and the youth-focused workshop The World’s Heros.
After moving across the country, a little girl finds more than a best friend when her parents let her adopt a dog.
Filmmaker Bios
Cory Reeder is a writer, director, producer and founder of Renaissance Man Productions. Since moving his company to Los Angeles in 2011, he has been creating music videos for: Hayley Kiyoko, Seether, Martin Solveig, Of Mice & Men, Five Finger Death Punch, and more. In between music video productions, Cory is devoted to directing narrative stories. In 2015, while directing the award-winning short film Unlikely Temptations starring Nic Novicki, Reeder was educated on the lack of representation people with disabilities have in media. Since then he has focused his efforts on all forms of inclusion behind and in front of the camera. In 2016, his film Boxed Out won actress Diana Elizabeth Jordan the Best Actor Award from the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge. In 2017, his entry in the competition, Best Friend, was nominated in all categories taking home two awards for Best Film and Audience Awareness Award. He is currently writing Best Friend into a feature-length screenplay and looking to have it produced this fall.
A stop-motion animated film for children, created by an autistic teen, about letters and numbers on rescue mission to Mars.
Several dozen years apart in age, both Stanislaw and Sta ́s were born without arms. A remarkable artist who uses his feet to paint, draw, eat, and drive, Stanislaw becomes an important mentor to young Stas, a boy still learning to navigate his unique place in the world.
Accessibility aids thanks to support from DTCC.
Based on a true story: Four young students from a school for the blind embark on an odyssey from their remote village in Tibet to the giant city of Shenzhen in order to sing on a TV talent competition.
Accessibility aids thanks to support from Alliance Bernstein.
Filmmaker Bio
Zhang Wei was born in the Hunan Province of China, and he studied directing at the Beijing Film Academy and Cinema Studies at the Chinese National Academy of Arts. To date, he has directed five features including Beijing Dream (2010) and Shadow Puppet Show of One Person (2011), both of which received acclaim from critics. His third feature Factory Boss (2014) has been shown at numerous festivals, and it won the Best Actor Award at the Montréal World Film Festival and the Fajr Award for best original screenplay at the Fajr International Film Festival. His fourth feature Destiny (2016) won the Best Actress Award and the Best Actor Award at the New York SR Socially Relevant Film Festival. Ballad From Tibet is his fifth feature and won the Best Children’s Feature at the China International Children’s Film Festival in November 2017.
An inventive animated and live action documentary about autism and sensory perception. Featuring Temple Grandin
