REEL ABILITIES RVA

The ReelAbilities Film Festival is dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different abilities. The festival presents award-winning films, accompanied by discussions and other engaging programs which bring together the community to explore, discuss and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.

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Fred Orelove

People with disabilities for the most part, are still, unfortunately, invisible. And if you think about it, people with disabilities are citizens like everyone else. They live among us. They work among us, although not as much as they should. They go to school among us, although not as integrated as they should. And yet, if you ask the average person, “Tell me the names of your friends who have disabilities, or tell me even how many people you’re Facebook friends with,” my guess is the average individual will say “zero.” We need to make sure that individuals with disabilities are people among us that we think about every day, not people that we keep buried or hidden.

I saw the trailers months ago. I tend to have a really wide interest in disabilities, my background is in disabilities. I find interest in every one of the films from that. Plus, I like films, so I’m also interested for film’s sake. 

They’re interesting, well made films. And they happen to also be films that include information about disabilities and people with disabilities, which I find, first of all, different.If you think about the typical movie you go to, how many people have disabilities [on screen]? I mean, seriously, can you think of a Hollywood film star who has a disability? This is a good chance for people to see folks with disabilities who are either the stars of or are telling stories about themselves. The stories are very compelling.

My whole career was in disability. I actually just retired four years ago from VCU, I was the director of the Partnership for People with Disabilities. I was on the faculty in Special Education and Disability Policy, and I’m Professor Emeritus of that department. So, you know, professionally, I’ve been involved with this field for thirty, almost forty, years. 

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Dr. Ananda Pandurangi

I would say you will be very pleasantly surprised and you will learn more than you ever imagined, so please come! Whenever I have gone to film festivals that had a focus on part-fiction, part-documentary, part-education, part-therapy I have come out so much more enriched. I am speaking for myself, but I think that’s what will happen to everyone. 

And focusing more on mental health, these disorders are problems, they are ubiquitous. They are everywhere, and all of us severely underestimate this. But once you open up to somebody and you say, “You know, I saw this movie where this person was depressed, or committed suicide, or was hospitalized or was taking this medicine or that medicine,” then you would be surprised at the responses you will get. The first thing people often say is “actually my brother has the same thing, or I myself am taking antidepressants and have been wanting to talk about it.” Mental health issues are prevalent, they affect all of us in one way or another and there is so much to learn. We need festivals like this frequently [to open up that dialogue].

I am of course, a psychiatrist, a professor of psychiatry. I have been a practitioner of psychiatry now for 40 years, starting as a resident in India. When I look at it, the first thing I would say is I absolutely enjoy my work. Every day brings a different story, it’s never the same, and it is always gratifying.

[But] my perspective is that of a professional who is learning the personal side of things and I think we [doctors] are not very sensitive to many things that happen with our patients and I think I can learn a lot by trying to put myself in that person’s shoes. To put it very bluntly, we lock people up. It is one of the most traumatic things you can do to a person. We don’t realize that, only because our intentions are good, our intentions are absolutely the best. We want to help the person and we are bound by professional ethics and we do this with the intention of helping, so we think that it is okay. And it is okay, but there are a hundred different things to it. Just that particular example of what a person feels like when the door closes behind him or her, that’s something awful feeling. I don’t think we are really sensitive to that, or not as sensitive as we should be. So on and so forth, medications, side effects, feeling desperate or overwhelmed or suicidal. It’s the same thing.

So I think it’s very important to have, whether it’s a festival, or an immersion week, or some other form of education, it’s important to have something to showcase these instances where people are telling their stories. Where we look at the story from multiple perspectives.

[reelabilitiesrva-blog]

Rob Targos

I was born with Cerebral Palsy in 1972. For me I used my cerebral to overcome the palsy. I use crutches because my balance and coordination is effected. My disability allows me to be a teacher. I walk, talk and smile with personality.

I found out about the Reel Abilities festival from the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Richmond. Reel Abilities is about documenting and seeing about abilities. I had the benefit of being part of Sesame Street 22 years before the ADA.

Below is an original poem of Rob’s.

[reelabilitiesrva-blog]

Chloe Sutterfield

I think people should attend Reel Abilities because it might change their minds, and they’ll see things through our eyes rather than saying, “you have a disability so you can’t do anything,” which isn’t true at all. Who knows? They might even be inspired. 

Yes I have a disability, I have Cerebral Palsy which prevents me from walking. But I don’t really think of it as a disability, I think of it as a gift from God. I tell everybody I meet that I have a gift, and I’m proud of it because I wouldn’t be here doing everything I do if I wasn’t like this, and I’m happy this way. 

To me, Reel Abilities is a great celebration for everything people who have disabilities have achieved. It’s important in Richmond because there’s a lot of people here who have these disabilities. 

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Sarah Gilbert

If you’re not interested in the festival then you obviously are a little bit naive towards the disability realm. When you get to know somebody with a disability, whether it’s through a film or in person, it shows you a whole other world--a little bit of what we go through, a little bit of how our thought process is, and what we face on a daily basis that we do have to overcome. 

It’s showcasing our abilities rather than our disabilities. Most people, when they look at us, they almost automatically feel sorry for us, and they think “Oh, well their standard of living is lower than a normal person’s.” Whereas it’s not that way in any way, shape or form.

And so I feel like by shining the light, even if the film is not about a person with a physical disability, y’all are actually shining the light on people who are disabled. Which I think is almost better than showcasing it as about somebody with a disability because most likely that actor or actress isn’t in a chair to begin with. I think these movies are better than watching a feel-good movie about somebody in a chair who doesn’t actually live that experience. 

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Trey Saunders

The festival is good for seeing what’s out there about disabilities. I mean, every person with disabilities is different. 

Viewing these films can be a great learning experience. The more you know about something the better off you are. 

There’s so many ways it can help benefit. Getting more active with disabled people, you know what I mean? Getting them in the community, period.

[reelabilitiesrva-blog]

Rhona Arenstein

I grew up in the 1950s, one of five children, and I had a brother, who was manic and depressive, he’d be very high one day and very low the next. And we never knew what to expect from him. But he was never diagnosed, and I watched my parents deal with such a difficult child and they had no help, they didn’t even have help back then, you know, what with the stigma.

So as a child in that family, growing up, even though i didn't realize that I was a victim and so were my other siblings, of a brother who could be really mean. We grew up thinking it was sibling rivalry, we didn't know that brothers aren’t supposed to do these things to their siblings and so as we all grew up I realized how each of us has had to struggle to figure out our lives.

You know they say that you’re attracted to the environment you grew up in?  My whole life, I always felt comfortable working with people who had some type of disability, because I grew up fearing my brother but loving him and realizing that it wasn’t his fault, he was a product of his environment, the times, being without a diagnosis. So I think that has always influenced me, through my whole life. I’ve always been involved with some type of project and had that connection because I really do feel there has been progress.

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We have such a community of busy people these days. So people pick and choose what they attend. But I see the power of this festival. I invited a woman to leave her familiar world and get involved with ReelAbilities film festival and it’s like she opened up like a little cocoon. She's involved now and loves it and she has thanked me because she says “you know, we’re so busy with our children, with our jobs, with our commitments, this and that, that we don’t look past our comfort zone”. So what I would say to anyone is, go beyond your comfort zone and allow yourself to be taken into another world and understand people who suffer with different disabilities and not to be afraid. A lot of people, my friends, don't want to see these things, because it makes them feel afraid, but it’s okay to feel afraid. You have to jolt your system and challenge yourself to go outside the box and be part of the community. You just can’t live on one plane. You can, if that’s your choice, but I would just challenge people to open up their minds and come reach another dimension.