Feel The Love with Two Award Winning Short Films @ disTHIS! Wednesday, 2/07

When: Wednesday, February 7 Time: 6:30 to 9pm. Screening starts promptly at 7pm.

Where: DCTV @ The Firehouse 3rd Floor Screening Room 87 Lafayette St (between Walker & White) 2 blocks South of the Canal Street Station in New York City.

Cost: Free
space is limited! Call 212.251.4092 to reserve YOUR seat or email: Lawrence@dnnyc.net

U.S. Premiere!

Disabled & Looking For Love Winner of the 2006 Grierson Award for Best Newcomer

Director: Claire Richards
Length: 60 Minutes

Finding a partner is hard enough, but imagine if you're in a wheelchair or you can't talk. What do you do? How do you find a girlfriend who can handle your autism? How do you "get lucky" if you don't have a leg to get over?

Winner of the prestegious Grierson Award for Best Newcomer, Director Claire Richards chronicles the real life adventures of four people with disabilities who are looking for love with the help of a group called 'The Outsiders' in the groundbreaking documentary, "Disabled and Looking For Love."

"The idea a disabled person should want to have a sex life is still considered fairly taboo," said Richards. "You might even think that because someone has a disability they can't have sex, or isn't interested in it, which may or may not be the case. Without explicitly talking about sex and love the film wasn't going to get to the heart of the issue. I didn't want to dwell on sex though, the film is about much more than that - I wanted to concentrate on the idea of following people who were looking for that special someone and talk about feeling love and care for someone - it's a universal desire and that was my point."

Read an in-depth interview with Director Claire Richards at Shooting People: http://www.shootingpeople.org/ shooterfilms/ interview. php?int_id= 74

The Crippendales
Winner of the Best International Documentary at the New York International Film Awards

Director: Havana Marking
Length: 24 minutes

Remember "The Full Monty" in which six unemployed steel workers follow one man's dream and together form a comedic male striptease act? Now, imagine that same plot line, only this time the leader uses a wheelchair, and his buddies all have physical disabilities.

That's the idea behind the new documentary entitled "The Crippendales. " Winner of the Best International Documentary at the New York International Film Awards, the movie follows Lee Kemp, a hepcat wheelchair user who wants to be a stripper. He recruits his friends to learn to bump, grind and dazzle the ladies at the "girls' night out" clubs. The film received rousing support from audiences at the most recent NY Film Festival.

Director Havana Marking explains the reason behind making the film was to "challenge the assumptions many people have about the sexuality of people with disabilities. " Will she succeed?

The ever-popular, always rousing audience discussion will follow the screening! All disTHIS! movies, talkback sessions and related events are free and open to the public. Donations accepted. Space is wheelchair accessible. Snacks are provided and there is a cash bar for drinks, but space is limited! Call 212.251.4092 to reserve YOUR seat or email: Lawrence@dnnyc. net

About us: The disTHIS! Film Series is a project of the Disabilities Network of NYC and hosted by ConnecTV is made possible, in part, by the generous support of The Christopher Reeve Foundation. We showcase independent and international short, documentary and feature films with disability themes beyond clichés that audiences members are unlikely to see elsewhere. Movies screened as a part of disTHIS! are always provocative; never quite what audiences expect. A magical, mystical place where plot pulverizes pity, character trumps charity and direction and dialogue beat out diagnosis. The disTHIS! Film Series: No handkerchief necessary, no heroism required. This is disability through a whole new lens.

For more information and to sign up for regular email updates,
please visit: http://disthis. org
Be sure to friend us on MySpace at: http://www.myspace.com/disthisfilmseries

Bookmark/Search this post with:

| | | | | | | | |