2004 SPROUT FILM FESTIVAL
Schedule: Saturday May 22
GIVE ME CHINESE FOOD
44 sec./animation/2003/USA/Sue Chan
This video depicts the filmmaker’s life and lunch, at the long-term care facility where she currently resides.
SHERI & PAUL
12 min./documentary/2003/USA/Anthony Di Salvo
A couple shares their personal thoughts on love and marriage in this candid portrait.
SNACK & DRINK
3 min./animation/1999/USA/Bob Sabiston
An animation starring Ryan Power, an autistic teenager living in Austin, Texas, which documents his trip to the local store for a snack and drink.
HOW’S YOUR NEWS?
82 min./documentary/2002/USA/Arthur Bradford
This film documents the real-life transcontinental journey of a group of adults with disabilities. These travelers serve as journalists who videotape interviews with people they meet along the way. Joined by counselors, they cross paths with evangelizers, homeless men, hitchhikers, country music lovers, alligator wranglers, migrant workers, Las Vegas showgirls, movie stars and a palm reader with red, foot-long fingernails.
PLAYING GOD
2 min./animation/2003/Scotland/Sam McIlmunn
Sam was out walking when is shot and killed by a robber. He goes up to heaven and, since God was feeling ill, he takes over his job… The video was written, drawn, directed and animated by a 14-year-old young man with Asperger’s Syndrome.
HILLBILLY EYES
9 min./documentary/2001/USA/Adam Feinstein
Alex is a beautiful child, but he is not the child his parents thought he would be. He doesn’t talk, look at people, or show interest in the world around him. Alex is profoundly autistic, and for years he has loved only one thing: country music. Hillbilly Eyes explores the powerful and ultimately mysterious bonds between parents and their children.
TALK TO ME
28 min./documentary/2003/USA/Vanessa Kaneshiro
This documentary takes viewers into the lives of children with autism at home and at school, and profiles the efforts of their parents and teachers to help them achieve their potential. The families we meet are of different racial and socio-economic backgrounds struggling to obtain appropriate services for their children.
THE AUTISM PUZZLE
60 min./documentary/2003/UK/Saskia Baron
Forty years ago autism was a highly obscure disorder that was thought to affect only four to five children in every 10,000, but now some British teachers are claiming to see it in one in every 86 children.
This documentary looks at the history of autism, and current research into the cause, treatment and prevalence. It includes interviews with some of the world’s leading experts on autism and gives new hope for greater understanding of this mysterious disability.
WORK IN PROGRESS
1 min./animation/2003/USA/Lauren Bickerstaff
The culmination of hundreds of charcoal drawings and digital manipulations based on Eadweard Mubybridge’s motion studies.
THE EIGHTH DAY
108 min./narrative/1996/France/Jaco Van Dormael
A tale about the unusual friendship between two men from radically different worlds. Harry is a salesman extraordinaire whose wife has left him, taking their two daughters with her. One day Harry meets Georges, a young man with Down Syndrome who has just escapes from a home for the handicapped. These two men with nothing in common become inseparable and together embark on an unpredictable and deeply moving journey of self-discovery.
UP CATHY
1 min./animation/2003/USA/Amal “Ba” Hirmina
The video is a rhythmic collage of the filmmaker’s paintings, drawings, assemblage and songs, which are sung by the filmmaker.
Schedule: Sunday May 23
THE HOUSE
9 min./live action & animation/2003/UK/Vivienne Jones
The House tells the story of a group of women with mental disabilities, as they explore their own lives and memories through drawings and animations. It highlights aspects of their everyday lives, their dreams and aspirations and who they are.
THE COLLECTOR OF BEDFORD STREET
34 min./documentary/2001/USA/Alice Elliott
The film takes an intimate look at Larry Selman, the filmmaker’s 59-year-old neighbor with developmental disabilities. A tale of personal persistence overcoming the odds, the film humanizes the story behind the abstract statistics of mental retardation, shedding light on how a community builds tolerance and understanding.
THE SOCIAL CLUB
20 min./narrative/1998/USA/Anthony Di Salvo
A tale of love, money, the mob, the FBI and 1968 convertible. The video was shot in 5 days using people with developmental disabilities in all the major acting roles.
TREE< FLOWER, BUTTERFLY
43 sec./animation/2003/Sue Chan
Using digital composition and traditionally drawn animation this video shows a fanciful landscape transform over time.
OUR HOUSE
83 min./documentary/2003/USA/Sevan Matossian
Laura, Tim W., and Tim S. were born with developmental disabilities and now living outside an institution for the first time in years. This feature length documentary verite explores the intimate and original view of human struggle told through the stories of these unique individuals. This video contains adult content and strong language.
THE GORDON SHEPARD STORY
2 min./animation/2003/USA/Gordon Shepard
This video uses traditionally drawn animation to tell the filmmaker’s life story.
WORK IN PROGRESS
15 min./documentary/1993/USA/Hebert Peck, Jr.
Little Hebert chronicles the pregnancy of the filmmaker’s wife and the birth of their son, who was born with Down Syndrome. The video portrays the couple’s fears, love and new outlook on life as a family.
MY FOUR CHILDREN
53 min./documentary/2002/Israel/Nitza Gonen
After losing one of her four children to a terrorist attack and another to a car accident, Nelli Portughez feels she has nothing to live for. Hope returns when she decides to raise four abandoned children, all with Down Syndrome. This documentary follows Nelli’s struggle to raise these children despite opposition from her family.
BRAVO GLORIA
28 min./documentary/1988/USA/Arlene Alda
We get to know Gloria, a 32-year-old woman with developmental disables, through her own words, as well as through seeing her with her family and in social interactions. her parents emerge as people who long ago came to terms with Gloria’s deficits and who have spent the better part of 32 years cultivating their daughter’s talents and assets.