On Sunday, October 12, the School of Education will continue its tradition of collaborating the Syracuse International Film Festival by presenting “Imaging Disability in Film,” and “Imagining Disability in Film: Focus on India” co-sponsored by the Disability Studies Program.
Each year, the Film Festival lives out the mission to “engage, entertain, inform, and inspire the community through innovative film and media programs and special film-based events” while also building partnerships and presenting programs that enrich the Syracuse and Central New York community through the world of international film. The collaboration with Syracuse University’s School of Education represents one such partnership and aims to engage the community in meaningful discussion around experiences with disability.
See below for the Imagining Disability in Film schedule.
Imaging Disability in Film
Sunday, October 12, 1 p.m.
Watson Auditorium, Syracuse University
Tickets $12; Students are free
LITTLE WORLD (2012) 83 minutes, by Marcel Barrena (Spain), documentary, starring Albert Casals, Anna Socias, and Alex Casals
This inspiring documentary from Spain, winner of the Youth Jury Prize at a prestigious documentary film festival, will be screened for the first time in the United States. The movie celebrates the buoyant spirit of Albert Casals, a 20-year-old from Spain. A prolific world traveler and free spirit, Albert decides that he and his girlfriend, Anna, will travel from their home in Barcelona literally halfway around the world to East Cape, New Zealand, and to do so with only 20 euros in their pockets. The fact that Albert uses a wheelchair is but one more aspect of life. His mobility is as unrestricted as his sense of freedom and adventure.
FIXING LUKA (2010) 11 minutes/animation, by Jessica Ashman (Scotland)
Rubber ducks lined up perfectly in a row. A thousand stamps stuck to a bedroom wall. A pyramid of thimbles knocked to the floor. These are just some of Luka’s obsessive routines, a daily performance played out under the anxious gaze of his sister, Lucy. She thinks Luka needs fixing as every time she disturbs his routine, Luka falls apart. Literally. One evening – battered by his springs and rejections – Lucy finally loses her patience and runs away. Stumbling in the forest, she discovers a clockwork soldier in a shack. When she manages to fix his head, Lucy thinks she’s found the solution to her problems at home.
MY BROTHER NAVNEET (2013) 1 minute, by Wings and Oars Media Comm, Hyderabad (India)
A simple and emotional depiction of the way children look at life without prejudice.
Imaging Disability in Film: Focus on India
Presented by: Syracuse University School of Education Disabilities Studies Program and William Pelley, MHA, Upstate Medical University
Sunday, October 12, 4 p.m.
Landmark Theater, Downtown Syracuse
Tickets $12; Free for Syracuse University and Le Moyne College students
SHIP OF THESEUS (2013) 140 minutes, by Anand Gandhi, starring Aida El-Kashef, Neeraj Kabi, and Sohum Shah
If the parts of a ship are replaced, bit by bit, is it still the same ship? A blind photographer, celebrated for her intuitive work, successfully captures the essence of her experience in her photography. However, she also struggles with insecurities over authorship in the context of larger questions about subjectivity and intent in art. An erudite monk, who is an ideologue and practitioner of nonviolence, and involved in animal rights activism, is forced to make a choice between death and medicine – medicine that is either derived from or tested on animals. As death closes in, he requestions all the ideas that he has always taken for granted. A young stockbroker has a frictional relationship with his grandmother, whom he nurses in a hospital. When it is discovered that a neighboring patient has had his kidney stolen, he starts out on a trail that leads him to a kidney tourism racket. Altruism and concern leads him to confront the recipient of the kidney, eventually making him discover how intricate morality could be. Following the separate strands of their philosophical journeys, and their eventual convergence, Ship of Theseus explores questions of identity, justice, beauty, meaning, and death.
DRAMA (2014) 10 minutes, by Guan Tian, starring Shi Sun, Yanyu Dong, Ni Yan, and Guan Tian
Is a wry comedy about a young couple who are about to have sex in a car when they realize the young man does not have a condom. At this same moment they notice a woman standing at the corner of an intersection not far from them. The girl in the car believes the woman is a prostitute and asks her boyfriend to go out and ask the woman for a condom, but the boyfriend does not think the woman is a prostitute. Guan Tian is a recent graduate of Syracuse University.