Weaving together never-before-seen archival footage with reflective interviews and the personal stories of men and women with disabilities, Defiant Lives details the rise of the disability rights movement in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.

Filmmaker Bio

Sarah Barton is a filmmaker with more than 20 years experience and has focused mainly on making films about disability. Her first major film, Untold Desires (1994) about sexuality and disability, won the first Logie Award for SBS television and an AFI Award for most outstanding documentary. In 2003 Sarah created and produced the first 70 episodes of the award winning disability community television series No Limits.  Sarah’s short documentary Stroke A Chord (2012) about a choir of stroke survivors who can sing but not speak was a finalist in the ATOM Awards in 2013. Between 2011 and 2015, Sarah worked as Chief Executive Officer of Disability Media Australia an organization she co-founded in 2005.  She also returned to No Limits in the role of Executive Producer mentoring and training disabled producers, cast and crew. In 2015 Sarah returned to her production company Fertile Films to complete Defiant Lives and recently launched an online video distribution platform DisabilityBusters.com