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REELAbilitiesBoston Film Festival focuses on reframing lives with disabilities

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January 29, 2012|By Loren King

The new REELAbilitiesBoston Film Festival will open with My Spectacular…

There’s a new event in town, offering six films from around the world about people with disabilities. REELAbilitiesBoston Film Festival, presented by the long-running Boston Jewish Film Festival, premieres Thursday and runs through Feb. 8 at several local venues. Boston is the fifth city in the country to sponsor REELAbilities, a national film fest launched in New York in 2007. The event opens with “My Spectacular Theatre,’’ from China, at the Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown. Directed by Yu Lang, “My Spectacular Theatre’’ is about a young man who finds refuge in a Beijing movie theater where all of the patrons are blind.

“REELAbilitiesBoston is a unique experience for us because the films are not necessarily Jewish in content,’’ says Jaymie Saks, BJFF managing director. “Disabilities are universal. They affect people in all communities. We want to unite the entire community around this issue through film.’’

Other features in REELAbilitiesBoston include “War Eagle, Arkansas’’ (Saturday, Capitol Theatre, Arlington), about a star pitcher (Luke Grimes) with a debilitating stutter whose chance for a college scholarship will be his ticket out of his small town.

“Shooting Beauty’’ (next Sunday, Museum of Fine Arts) is George Kachadorian’s hourlong documentary about local photographer Courtney Bent, who works with people living with cerebral palsy at a community program in Watertown.

In “Snow Cake’’ (also next Sunday at the MFA), Sigourney Weaver plays a woman with high-functioning autism. “Warrior Champions’’ (Feb. 7, West Newton Cinema) is Brent and Craig Renaud’s documentary about four disabled Iraq war veterans who attempt to compete in the Olympics. “Anita’’ (Feb. 8, West Newton Cinema) is a Spanish film from director Marcos Carnevale that screened in the 2010 BJFF. Anita Feldman (Alejandra Manzo), a teenager with Down syndrome, helps run the small store of her mother (Norma Aleandro) in their Buenos Aires Jewish neighborhood. When a bomb rocks the area, Anita wanders the city for days and affects everyone she meets.

Films are $10 general admission, $9 for seniors, students, and members of the MFA, Coolidge Corner Theatre, and WGBH. Some films will have a question-and-answer session afterward with a guest speaker.

Go to www.bjff.org.

Denis on Bresson