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Announcing the 2018 Superfest Disability Film Festival lineup

08/27/2018 LightHouse Staff

San Francisco’s LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State are proud to announce the lineup for this year’s Superfest Disability Film Festival.

Join us on October 20 at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in Berkeley and on October 21 the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco for the best in unapologetic, accessible and cutting edge disability film.

Purchase tickets to Superfest 2018

Superfest is the longest running disability film festival in the world. Since it first debuted as a small Los Angeles showcase in 1970, it has become an eagerly anticipated international event. The festival is one of the few in the world to provide an accessible film experience to disabled filmgoers of all kinds.

Disability Rights advocate Alice Wong speaks at Superfest in 2017.

Each judge for Superfest is a member of the disability community, and they ground our festival in the values and ambitions of a progressive, Bay Area-driven disability ethos. The jury is comprised of filmographers, disability rights advocates, community organizers and award-winning creatives. They choose the submissions based on standards of artistry, portrayal of disability and ingenuity.

Superfest features films from five continents which highlight a range of experiences of people living with disabilities through a variety of genres and formats. From observational documentary to action to stop motion, we have films which will entertain, educate and promote discussion on disabilities.

Announcing the 2018 Superfest Lineup

Stumped (US, 2017), Documentary Short, Best of Festival – Short (25 minutes)

Climber Maureen Beck is not here to be your inspiration. She was born missing her lower left arm, but that hasn’t stopped her from going hard. “I don’t want to just be a good one-armed climber,” says Maureen. “I want to be a good climber.”

A climber ascends a free-standing rock, while two people stand on a rock below her.

Still Tomorrow (China, 2016), Documentary, Best of Festival – Feature (1 hour 23 minutes)

Yu Xiuhua is a village woman with cerebral palsy, who became China’s most well-known poet in 2015. Her 20-year-long arranged marriage has become the biggest pain in her life. Through her poems, she contemplates her fate and writes about her body and her desire for true love.

A woman stands with her back to the camera in a field of a dark, tall grassy crop.

Stim (US, 2017), Documentary Short, P.K. Walker Innovation in Craft Award (7 minutes)

An artistic ode to the practice of stimming, or self-stimulatory behavior, the repetition of physical movements or sounds, or repetitive movement of objects.

Lower-body shot of a child sitting cross-legged, grasping a blue plush toy with one hand.

Who Am I To Stop It (US, 2017), Documentary Short, Disability Justice Award (30 minutes)

This semi-observational documentary explores isolation, art and transformation after brain injury. Through cinéma vérité, the film follows Dani Sanderson, a poet and beat boxer, as she navigates autonomy, relationships, and questions of family, queer sexuality and faith.

A woman sits, reading a sheet with a poem entitled “Never Ending Trauma.”

To Know Him (UK, 2018), Dramatic Short (28 minutes)

When a tragic accident leaves Sarah grieving for her deaf partner Rob, she is forced to track down and engage with his estranged hearing father. To lay the man she loves to rest, Sarah must overcome a barrier far greater than language.

Two women sit, both with looks of concern, gazing towards the left. The woman, at left, is in focus and wears a black shirt.

Making Waves (Australia, 2017), Documentary Short (6 minutes)

Max McAuley is a young, professional dancer with Down Syndrome. In this story, Max is the principal dancer in a choreographed work that is inspired by the watery world of his dreams.

A boy dances in front of lights which mimic water, and below, subtitle: "Dancing is my thing that I love." — A boy dances in front of lights which mimic water, and below, subtitle: “Dancing is my thing that I love.”

Just Go! (Latvia, 2017), Action Short (11 minutes)

Inspired by the true story about a young man, Just, who lost both of his legs in a childhood accident. At age 24, he is in love with the girl next door, and through an action-packed series of events, the film proves that looks can be deceiving.

A young man rolls with his torso on a skateboard and arms pushing him past flowers in a market.

Gaelynn Lea – The Songs We Sing (US, 2017), Documentary Short (11 minutes)

Minnesota violinist and disability rights advocate Gaelynn Lea travels the upper Midwest on tour, experiencing the ups and downs of the road while hustling hard to make it as a performer and artist.

A woman cradles a violin while leaning towards a microphone.

This Is Normal (US, 2014), Dramatic Short (19 minutes)

A young deaf woman undergoes an experimental medical procedure that is supposed to “cure” her of her deafness and give her the ability to hear. Despite the controversy, Gwen risks her friends, culture and identity to discover the answer to the question, “Is it worth giving up who you’ve been for who you could become?”

A profile shot of a woman sitting in her car, looking distraught.

Journey to the Miracle Man (Sweden/Brazil, 2018), Documentary Feature (1 hour 5 minutes)

With as much hope as doubt, Fabian and Lisa travel on a journey that will change their worldview. But is the Miracle Man (John of God) the savior everyone is talking about? And do they need to believe to be healed?

A woman stands on a ledge in front of a fresh night sky with low, blue light in front of an open frontier. She holds her phone up to photograph the scene.

Kū Kanaka/Stand Tall (US, 2016), Documentary Short (28 minutes)

When 15-year-old Kanalu Young takes a dive into shallow water, he becomes quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. Angry and defiant through months of rehabilitation, he begins to change when he learns the Hawaiian language, and discovers an untold story of Hawaiian history.

A group of people walk in a march, and one joins in a wheelchair. The people wear leis and flowers, and men wearing shirts that say "Security" surround at the bounds. — A group of people walk in a march, and one joins in a wheelchair. The people wear leis and flowers, and men wearing shirts that say “Security” surround at the bounds.

Stopgap in Stop Motion (UK, 2017), Animated Short (5 minutes)

Photographs of performers in a disabled and non-disabled dance company come to life. The individual artists dance out of the photos and across table tops until the whole company meets and performs in unison.

Two photographs sit upright beside a shelf of papers. At left, a man stands looking at his phone. In the photo at right, a woman sitting in a wheelchair smiles back at the camera.

Purchase tickets to Superfest 2018

Access at Superfest

As always, Superfest will be furnished with a wide range of accessible accommodations: audio description, open captions, ASL interpretation, audience-integrated wheelchair seating, close-up seating for people with low vision or who are deaf or hard of hearing, a chemical free and scent free area set back from rest of audience, a place to retreat, gender neutral restrooms, easy access to public transportation including BART and MUNI, and ramp access to the stage.

LightHouse News

Superfest 2017 Was Our Best Yet

11/13/2017 LightHouse Staff

Superfest was a blast this year, thanks to the participation and support of our community. What a beautiful weekend! All of our film screenings sold out and everyone seems to agree: it was the best Superfest yet.

LightHouse Director of Communications Will Butler speaks with Superfest attendees.

Sonja Ohldag laughs with friends and holds her guide dog Chief, who was the focus of a short documentary shown on Saturday.

At Superfest 2017, more people with disabilities told their stories through film than ever before. Nine of our filmmakers came to participate in panels, and we screened films shot and produced in Myanmar, Colombia, Germany, Vietnam, Australia, Japan, Canada, Italy and the United States. It was a unique experience to welcome these storytellers into our local community in conversations that deepened the global understanding around disability and its portrayal in film.

Two women, one standing and one in a wheelchair, laugh and talk at Sunday Superfest screening.

But there’s more! Chief, the protagonist of his short eponymous documentary, has a message for you: now you can celebrate Superfest International Disability Film Festival year round — as a Superfest Showcase host. Contact us to find out how you can support and host screenings in your city, thanks to a generous grant from the Neda Nobari Foundation.

Interested in sponsoring Superfest next year? Check out our Sponsorship packages and help support cutting-edge disability film for years to come.

Thank you to this year’s sponsors and foundation support!

Foundation Support

Featured, LightHouse News

Superfest Filmmaker Reid Davenport Tells the Story of Deaf parents with Hearing Children

10/05/2017 LightHouse Staff

Reid Davenport is an award-winning documentarian whose films focus on people with disabilities. Founder and co-director of Through My Lens, Davenport has been creating films and public speaking for five years. As a man with cerebral palsy, his hope is to inspire disabled students to share their personal stories, as he has done. “There is a tremendous space for amateur videos now on YouTube and social media and a few people with disabilities have already grasped that fact and taken back the narrative,” he says. “That’s what we want to encourage, take back and start to chip away at the misrepresentations of disability.”

Reid’s short film On Beat, co-directed by Cheng Zhang, will be shown on Sunday, November 5 at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco for 2017’s Superfest International Disability Festival.

On Beat follows Larry and Tanisha Cotton, a Deaf couple with three hearing children. The family uses music to bond and express themselves. Davenport and Zhang discovered the Cotton family with another story in mind, having heard about Uber’s efforts to hire Deaf drivers (Larry is a driver), but once he came across their gospel group, he knew he had a different story to tell.

Davenport and co-director Cheng Zhang collaborated by playing off each other’s strengths. Because “her strength was shooting,” and Davenport “was more involved in the interviewing,” they “balanced each other quite well.” Davenport also brought a disability aesthetic to the film, as he has in other projects as well, by “shying away from medicalization of the disability, trying not to make a portrait a pathological impairment, instead focusing on the social impact of being disabled.”

The main thing Davenport wants other filmmakers to know is that with the proliferation of social media comes a unique opportunity. “The authority over the audience that they have is unprecedented, so they need to tell their stories.” He urges them to embrace stories about disability and not shy away from it.

Watch the trailer to On Beat below and buy your tickets to catch it at Superfest today:

LightHouse News

Ticket Giveaway to SF DocFest’s Off the Rails – Co-presented by Superfest International Disability Film Festival

06/02/2016 LightHouse Staff

Superfest International Disability Film Festival announces a partnership with SF DocFest to co-present OFF THE RAILS, a film by Adam Irving. New York’s infamous transit thief, 50-year-old Darius McCollum, has been impersonating transit staff and stealing trains and buses for over 35 years, he has been given the opportunity of National Pardon but he has never taken it. He has been arrested no less than 30 times and has spent much of his life behind bars. The subway was his sanctuary as a child and he soon had memorized every train’s schedule and stops. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, depression, and anxiety stemming from a childhood school attack, the courts have never understood his obsession with transit.

In honor of Superfest’s 30^th Anniversary we are giving away two tickets to the DocFest screening of Off the Rails at the Roxie Theater to the 30^th person to send an email to jsachs@lighthouse-sf.org with the subject line “Off The Rails”.

Screenings:

Sunday, June 12: 4:30 p.m. at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16^th Street in San Francisco

Tuesday, June 14: 9:00 p.m. at the Vogue Theater, 3290 Sacramento Street in San Francisco

Superfest, the world’s longest running disability film festival, celebrates disability as a creative force in cinema and culture. We feature films with fresh ideas and images that inspire thought and meaningful conversation. Superfest is coordinated in partnership by the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability and LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.