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Angela (1999)

Angela (age 10) and Ellie (age 6) live in Catskill, New York, a run-down town that business and industry have fled. Their mother, Mae, a beautiful, glamorous, eccentrically-dressed woman, has had to abandon her singing career because of an increasingly severe case of manic depression. Their father, Andrew, an earthy ex-musician, has made a pact not to put Mae on lithium; it kills her "spirit." In an effort to give the girls a "bland" experience to counteract the unpredictability of their lives, Andrew, himself an atheist, starts taking the family to church. He has no idea how powerfully the ideas embodied by Christianity will affect Angela, who becomes obsessed by the idea of sin. Angela convinces herself that the cleaner of sin she and her sister are, the happier their mother will be. To this end, she creates rituals to effect the inner purification of herself and her sister. Gradually, Angela moves further and further into the world of her own visionary imagination.

Angel Baby (1995)
Two schizophrenics meet during therapy and fall passionately in love. Ahead of them lies the inevitable road to disaster...one they share to the end.

A Place in the World (1992)
In addition to braving the multiple perils of being a teenager, the wistful adolescent son of a sheep ranching family bears witness to the endangerment of his bucolic village's slow-paced lifestyle when a corporate conglomerate tries to buy out the valley where the flocks live.

Autism is a World (2004)
Autism Is a World (2004) is a short subject documentary film written by Sue Rubin, an autistic woman who learned to communicate via facilitated communication, produced and directed by Gerardine Wurzburg and co-produced by the CNN cable network. The subject of this film is Sue Rubin, a woman with autism who was considered mentally retarded as a child. At the age of thirteen, she learned to express herself through a computer keyboard, otherwise known as facilitated communication, revealing that she was in fact highly intelligent. She went on to study history, specializing in Latin American History at Whittier College and to write speeches about her life with autism. Director Wurzburg has called Rubin "the Helen Keller of her generation". Rubin's dialogue is narrated by actress Julianna Margulies.

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Benny and Joon (1993)
In a small town, an auto mechanic named Benny is devoted to taking care of his mentally ill sister, Joon, who can barely function alone in the real world despite being a talented artist. This relatively stable situation is shaken up when Benny is obliged in a poker game to welcome another player's relative, Sam, to his home for a few days. When Sam arrives, he quickly makes an impression with his quietly eccentric ways which emulate the antics of the great silent movie comedian, Buster Keaton. Without Benny's full knowledge, Sam and Joon finds themselves drawn to each other to the fullest degree. However when Benny finds out, it creates a rift in the siblings as they struggle to accept their relationship is profoundly changing with the presence of this odd newcomer.

Breaking the Waves (1996)
Drama set in a repressed, deeply religious community in the north of Scotland, where a naive young woman named Bess McNeil (Emily Watson) meets and falls in love with Danish oil-rig worker Jan (Stellan Skarsgaard). Bess and Jan are deeply in love but, when Jan returns to his rig, Bess prays to God that he returns for good. Jan does return, his neck broken in an accident aboard the rig. Because of his condition, Jan and Bess are now unable to enjoy a sexual relationship and Jan urges Bess to take another lover and tell him the details. As Bess becomes more and more deviant in her sexual behavior, the more she comes to believe that her actions are guided by God and are helping Jan recover.

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Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Selma is a Czechoslovakian immigrant, a single mother working in a factory in rural America. Her salvation is her passion for music, specifically, the all-singing, all-dancing numbers found in classic Hollywood musicals. Selma harbors a sad secret: she is losing her eyesight and her son Gene stands to suffer the same fate if she can't put away enough money to secure him an operation. When a desperate neighbor falsely accuses Selma of stealing his savings, the drama of her life escalates to a tragic finale.

Dance Me to My Song (1998)
A woman (Heather Rose) trapped in a twisted body from her bouts with the debilitating cerebral palsy communicates with the world via her computer with a voice box. Her caretaker (Joey Kennedy) is a short-tempered woman who begrudges the woman the care she needs. Things change when Rose bumps into a young man (John Brumpton) who starts giving her attention. This leads her to start fantasizing about a real sexual relationship. However, the caretaker takes an interest in the man, as well, which leads to the dramatic conclusion.

Deaf (1986)
The School for the Deaf at the Alabama Institute is organized around a belief in complete communication: sign language and finger spelling is employed in conjunction with speech, hearing aids, lip-reading, gestures, and the written word. In 164 minutes, this 1986 Frederick Wiseman documentary attempts to show almost all aspects of this comprehensive training -- sign language instruction for both students and parents, psychological counseling, speech therapy, vocational training, disciplinary problems, visits from parents, sports and recreation, training in living and working independently, and money management.

Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

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Educating Peter (1992)

When Peter Gwasdauskis, a child with Down syndrome, was mainstreamed into a public school, he had a lot to learn about dealing with differences-and so did his classmates. Filmed over the course of the third-grade school year, this 1992 Academy Award-winning documentary vividly captures Peter's achievements and frustrations as he makes a place for himself among his peers.

Elling (2001)
Per Christian Ellefsen and Sven Nordin play the shy, retiring Elling and the imposing Kjell in this Norwegian movie about two mentally challenged friends who battle adversity and find their place in the sun. The two room together and attempt to create a life for themselves outside the confining, but protective, walls of the hospital. Directed by Petter Naess, Elling was nominated for an Academy Award in the Foreign Language Film category.

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Graduating Peter (2001)
Now there is a new documentary, airing tonight on HBO. Graduating Peter takes up the story in middle school, where students on the brink of adolescence are less tolerant. But as with his earlier experience in elementary school, Peter again finds acceptance and even enjoys moments that other teen-agers have -- dates, dances and a job.Eventually, Peter does "graduate" high school with a certificate of attendance. But the latest film presents a stark portrait of the complexities of growing up with Down syndrome.

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Helium Hearts (2003)
A DVD centered on Peyton's valedictorian speech for her graduation from college. Anne Donnellan says, "Her prose is poetic and prophetic...It's a must see if you wish to understand and support inclusion and peace for all people."

Her I Naerheden "A Place Nearby" (2000)
Kaspar Rostrup directs his usual murder mystery about a single mother's fierce love for her autistic son. In flashbacks, we see doctors explaining to Mrs. Nielsen (Ghita Norby) that her young son Brian (Magnus Stahl Jacobsen) is not necessarily retarded, but different nonetheless. "He's in his own world, as if he's from another star," one tells her. Years later, Mrs. Nielsen, who ekes out a living by running a general store in a small rural community, tries to shelter her now grown Brian (Thure Lindhardt) from the rest of the world. During one swelteringly hot summer night, Brian returns later than usual from his evening walk. The next morning, news spreads that a murdered teenaged girl had been found in the local park. Mrs. Nielsen immediately suspects her son and sets about removing potentially incriminating evidence and coaching her son as to what to say to the police. Meanwhile, Detective Jespersen (Frits Helmuth), who also suspects Brian, keeps dropping by the general store and peppering Brian with the same questions. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival.

Honour of the House (1999)

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I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School (2005)
In this revealing, Academy Award-winning documentary produced by HBO, directors Alan and Susan Raymond step into the Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia to shed light on the struggles that its students, teachers and administrators face each day: inadequate housing, drug addiction, unrelenting poverty and rampant crime. What's revealed is a testament to willpower and the human spirit, their prime vehicles on the road to success.

If I Can't Do it (1998)
Arthur Campbell, Jr. doesn't want your sympathy, he just wants what most people do: a living wage, a meaningful social life, a few good laughs and the means to get around. Filmmaker Walter Brock offers an unflinching portrait of one disabled man who, with many others, is pushing for independence and an equal slice of the American pie. From the remote hills of Kentucky to the hallowed halls of Congress, join Arthur on his own unforgettable ride through life and the disability rights movement.

I Have Tourettes But It Doesn't Have Me (2005)
I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me is an Emmy Award-winning documentary film featuring children between the ages of six and thirteen with Tourette syndrome. The film examines the lives of more than a dozen children who have Tourette's, and explores the challenges they face.

I Love You (1999) Japanese
To encourage a positive attitude, hearing-impaired mother Asako joins a theatrical troupe with her daughter Ai. Problems arise during rehearsals between the deaf and the hearing but they learn to work together.

Inside the Edge (2002)

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Josh Blue Collection
Josh Blue is an extraordinary 27-year-old comedian from Denver, CO. Born with cerebral palsy, he refuses to let his disability interfere with his dream of becoming a top comedian.

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King Gimp (1999)
Keplinger was 13 when the filmmakers met him as part of their federally funded documentary projects on mainstreaming children with disabilities. The cerebral palsy means Keplinger has little control over the muscles of his arms, legs or mouth. He uses a paintbrush attached to his head to paint. He could neither speak nor dress himself when the filmmakers met him. "They recorded Keplinger's move from a state school for disabled children into Parkville High School. They filmed him moving from his mother's home into his first apartment. His first art show, his friendship with a young woman hired to help him with homework, his senior prom and his tears at his college graduation -- all were captured on film," according to The Baltimore Sun. "King Gimp was the name neighbors gave him as a child because his house was on the top of a hill and he liked to roll down it in his wheelchair. A fighting spirit, he calls himself."

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Leolo (1992)
An unusually fertile imagination is at once the salvation and downfall of Léolo (Maxime Collin), a young Montreal boy growing up in a highly dysfunctional family. In order to cope with the chaos of his daily existence, Léolo invents a rich fantasy world into which he retreats. Over time, the boy sinks further into his mental creation, ultimately eschewing reality -- and sanity -- in director Jean-Claude Lauzon's hypnotic, visually arresting film.

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Mifune (2000)
Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) has quickly become a whirlwind success in business in Copenhagen. The morning after his wedding (to the boss' daughter), he receives a distressing phone call-his father has just died. He has trouble explaining this, because he told everyone-including his wife Claire (Sofie Gråbøl)-that he has no living relatives. Returning to his father's dilapidated, run-down farm, he comes across his elder brother, Rud (Jesper Asholt), a mentally handicapped, childlike creature quite unable to fend for himself. While taking care of his father's funeral arrangements, Kresten distracts Rud by pretending to be samurai Toshiro Mifune-a favorite game from their youth.

Mi Vie en Rose (1997)
Seven-year-old Ludovic (Georges Du Fresne) is convinced he's a girl trapped in a boy's body in this whimsical Belgian film. His expressions of sexual identity, which include wearing dresses and starring in a classroom performance of "Snow White," put a strain on his family and elicit teasing and intolerance from his schoolmates and neighbors. Ma Vie En Rose was an international film festival smash and received a Best Foreign Film Golden Globe.

My Classic Life as an Artist: A Portrait of Larry Bissonnette (2005)
This documentary is filled with Larry Bissonnette's humorous yet poignant assessments of his life--growing up, his family, and creating art. Moving back and forth between speech, typing, and painting, Bissonnette's wit and insight punctuate a day in the life of this Outsider artist, and artfully illustrate the complexities of expression.

My Flesh and Blood (2002)
Who says you can't choose your family? Susan Tom of Fairfield, California, has done just that, adopting 11 special-needs children and giving them love, hope and as close to a normal childhood as possible.Winner of the Audience Award and Director's Award at 2003's Sundance Film Festival, MY FLESH AND BLOOD follows a year in the life of this remarkable family as it confronts a litany of daily routines, celebrates life's small pleasures, and copes with major crises.

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Oasis (2004)
Jong-Du is back on the streets after serving a prison term for a crime that was actually committed by his brother. In an awkward attempt at reconciliation, Jong-Du seeks out the family of the man killed in the hit-and-run accident. Even though he is shunned by the victim's family Jong Du becomes intrigued by the man's daughter, a young woman with Cerebral Palsy.

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Piao Liang Ma Ma "Breaking the Silence" (1999)
Hard-working single mom Sun Liying struggles daily to earn enough money to buy a new hearing aid for her hearing-impaired son Zheng Da.

Prime Luci Dell'Alba "First Light of Dawn"(1999)
Lucio Gaudino directs this family drama about a pair of brothers grudgingly reunited after their parents are killed by Mafia extortionists. After learning of the murders, affluent yuppie Edo leaves his abode in northern Italy to visit his family's home in Sicily. There he and his resentful brother, wheelchair-bound Saro, argue, reminisce, and debate the pros and cons of living in a beautiful coastal area where Mafia executions are common.

Proof (1991)
Black comedy about a blind man, Martin, who takes photographs as "proof" that the world really is as others describe it to him. The film explores his antagonistic relationships with Celia, who cleans and cooks for him and habitually rearranges the furniture in the house, and with Andy, a mate he thinks he can trust. [Australian, Russell Crowe]

Prozac Nation (2001)
Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wurtzel is a teenager accepted into Harvard with a scholarship in journalism. She has been raised by her divorced mother since she was two years old, but she misses her father and feels needy and depressive. When she joins the university, she begins a tumble downward into life where abuse in sex and drugs, and her existential crisis and depression increases and she hurts her friends and her mother that love her, while dating Rafe. Mrs. Wurtzel sends her to an expensive psychiatric treatment with Dr. Sterling, in spite of having difficulties paying for her medical bills and therapy sessions. After a long period of treatment under medication, and suicide attempt, Lizzie stabilizes and adjusts to the real world.

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Regular Lives (1987)
This tape is a discussion of how children with disabilities are integrated into the mainstream of education.

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Sharisa: My Life as a Pioneer (1999)
In this video, Sharisa Kochmeister provides insights about her journey toward independent communication. Her story contains information from which professionals can learn a great deal about designing instructional practice with people with disabilities. Having spent her childhood with labels of "pervasive developmental disorder" and "severe mental retardation" based on a tested IQ of 24 at age 4 and of 10 at the age of 12. Sharisa was placed in special education classrooms where she was not challenged intellectually. In this video, Sharisa talks about her inner life during this time.The video, completed in August of 1999, is informative and useful for FC users, candidates for FC, families, professionals and pre-professionals.

Sound and Fury (2000)
SOUND AND FURY documents one family's struggle over whether or not to provide two deaf children with cochlear implants, devices that can stimulate hearing. As the Artinians of Long Island, New York debate what is the right choice for the two deaf cousins, Heather, 6, and Peter, 1 1/2, viewers are introduced to one of the most controversial issues affecting the deaf community today. Cochlear implants may provide easier access to the hearing world, but what do the devices mean for a person's sense of identity with deaf culture? Can durable bridges be built between the deaf and hearing worlds? Find out.

Snow Cake (2006)
Snow Cake is a drama about the friendship between Linda, an autistic woman (Sigourney Weaver), and Alex (Alan Rickman) who is traumatized after a car accident involving Linda's daughter (Emily Hampshire).

Stevie (2003)
When director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) attended Southern Illinois University, he became Stevie Fielding's Advocate Big Brother. Stevie was a demanding, hyperactive child living a heartbreaking life. When James relocated to Chicago to begin a film career in 1985, he ended his formal duties to Stevie. Ten years later, James again visits Stevie (now in his mid-twenties) and finds out what happened to him in the interim. Not a pretty story.

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The Apple (1998)
Two daughters are locked up by their parents, an unemployed man and his blind wife, for eleven years. Their neighbors call social workers to investigate the situation, and the results lead the girls on a bittersweet path to the rest of the world.

The Cost of Living (2004)
British physical theatre company DV8's Lloyd Newsom presents the film adaptation of "The Cost of Living" their dazzling, rave-reviewed show about perfection and pretence, about how society measures individuals and how we in turn, value ourselves.David and Eddie are street performers struggling to get by in a seaside town. As they work, argue, fail at romance and fall out with old friends, they ponder their lives.Words alone can't do the movie justice. A film unlike any other, "A Cost of Living" follows a disparate group of dancers as they clash with each other and the local community. Be dazzled in mind and eye by its narrative drive, bold dance pieces and unforgettable characters.

The Key of G (2007)
The Key of G is an intimate, award-winning documentary about disability, care giving, community integration and interdependence. The film follows Gannet, a charismatic 22-year-old with physical and developmental disabilities, as he leaves his mother's home to share an apartment with a group of artists and musicians who support him, not only as paid caregivers, but also as friends. Together they create a uniquely successful model of supported living, and a compelling alternative to institutionalized care.

The Sound and the Fury (2000)
Josh Aronson's documentary takes an unexpected approach to the "medical miracle" film by examining the political and emotional turmoil that erupts between brothers over the cochlear implant that might allow their deaf children to hear. The ways in which a so-called miracle cure can divide as well as heal families and communities is the focus of Sound and Fury, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
Director Atom Egoyan's haunting adaptation of Russell Banks' novel follows a grieving Canadian mountain community in the wake of a tragic school bus accident. Lawyer Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) arrives in town to persuade the survivors to initiate a class-action lawsuit, driving apart the once tight-knit hamlet. Meanwhile, a teen crippled in the

Starring: Maury Chaykin, Ian Holm. Director: Atom Egoyan

The Tic Code(1999)
A 10 year old gifted boy (Christopher Marquette) wants to be a jazz pianist much to the chagrin of his more classical oriented piano instructor (Carol Kane). With his mother's (Polly Draper) help, he is an underage regular at a local nightspot, where he is teamed up with a sax superstar (Gregory Hines). Both come to learn that each suffers from Tourette's Syndrome (thus the film title). The older man has developed mannerisms to cover up his own fallibilities and resents the boy and his mother's acceptance of the disease. James McCaffery appears as the older musician's father, who has not really accepted his son's odd behavior. Bill Nunn and Tony Shalhoub also appear as gutter-mouthed bartenders, who get the two musicians together initially.

The Titicut Follies (1967)
Titicut Follies is a black and white 1967 documentary film by Frederick Wiseman about the treatment of patients at Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The title is taken from a talent show put on by the hospital's inmates. (The talent show was taken from the Wampanoag Indian name for the nearby Taunton River).

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What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1994)
In the small town of Endora, Iowa, Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) is busy caring for his mentally handicapped brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio). His morbidly obese mother, Bonnie (Darlene Cates) has not left the house in seven years since her husband committed suicide by hanging himself in the basement of their house, and spends almost all of her time on the couch watching television. With Bonnie unable to care for her children on her own, Gilbert has taken responsibility for repairing the old house and looking after Arnie, who has a habit of climbing up the town water tower, while his sisters Amy and Ellen do the rest. A new "Food Land" supermarket has opened, threatening the small Lamson's Grocery where Gilbert works. To make things more complicated, Gilbert is having an affair with a married woman named Betty Carver (Mary Steenburgen), whose husband, unknowing of his wife's infidelity, tries to sell Gilbert life insurance. With all the weight on his shoulders, Gilbert tries to handle his situation the best he can.

Without Apology (2005)
"An honest, tender, must-see documentary for anyone who cares about people with significant cognitive disabilities and their families, Without Apology tells a tale once lived by thousands but until now revealed by few. By focusing on the emotional struggles that she and her own parents endured when, desperate for services, they sent her brother Alan to an institution, Susan Hamovitch reveals one family's experience in the days when solutions were scarce and shame was plentiful. The result is a heart-rendering gem of history, biography, and self-reflection-and the triumph of truth over secrets." - Rachel Simon, author, Riding the Bus with My Sister

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