The ReelAbilities Film Festival is the largest festival of its kind promoting awareness and inclusion through the stories and artistic expressions of people with different abilities.
PERFECTLY NORMAL FOR ME
3 pm - Reception with Q&A with Director Catherine Tambini, and children from the film!
3:30 pm - Film
At a unique after-school dance-program in Queens, exceptional kids with a variety of physical anddevelopmental challenges pair with teenage volunteers and share with us the perseverance and satisfaction of really being seen - in a world often blind to their very existence.
Alexandria, Jake, Caitlin and Veronica, ages 5 to 15, want to change the conversation. They reveal in their own words what it’s like to deal with the literal ups and downs of a challenged life. In this intimate verité documentary, four charismatic kids strive for acceptance in a world that is often, at best, indifferent to them. Their exceptional parents search out programs where their children are accepted and feel valued, from clinical services to adaptive skiing. We first meet them all in a unique after school dance program in Queens, New York.With a diverse group of dedicated teenage volunteers – outstanding citizens in a world where the impulse to exclude, bully or ignore is too often the norm – dancers and helpers work together for a year toward a jubilant spring recital. Thanks to the joy they find in working together, dancers and helpers emerge as eloquent, energized voices for inclusion. When the fate of the disabled, in fact the future of all minorities, is suddenly,once again at risk, these young people fill us with hope. (USA, 2018, 60 min., NR, English| Dir. Catherine Tambini)
