March 3, 2009
Reception 1:30 p.m.
Film screening opened by UBC President Stephen Toope 2:15 p.m.
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, The Royal Bank Cinema, 6265 Crescent Road
About the film:
Gentle, imaginative and rambunctiously creative, this disability arts-and culture-inspired film opens with the camera on the mountains and an interview with University of British Columbia Ph.D. student and pianistcomposer, Stefan Honisch, who ponders his status between metaphysics and the earthly world, between “religion and science” as a physically impaired musician. In most films, this scene might foretell a predictable exercise of exploitative tropes: pity, charity, tragic heroism, monstrosity or deviance, weary images of disabled people as less than human. Instead, the talented director, NFB award-winning Thomas Buchan was after something cunning and thoughtful. Vignettes feature performances from the acclaimed Unruly Salon Series at UBC with performing disability artists ranging from Lynn Manning, blinded in shooting at a bar at the age of 23 who went on to become a distinguished play write, actor, Blind Judo Champion of World, poet and writer, to Max Fromitchev, a deaf physical actor and mime formerly from Russia and who now makes his home in Canada and tells of how his comedy is rooted in his internal pain, from bi-polar princess and comic actress, Victoria Maxwell to humorist with a facial difference, David Roche, who awakens audiences worldwide to their own inner beauty. Content to listen, Buchan trains his sensitive lens on the formidable barriers to access, community, and educational equity spoken about by UBC students with disabilities whom he interviewed alongside the performers, artists, scholars and faculty. The Making of Perfect Storm tells of a provocative weaving of community through the Unruly Salon series. Film is captioned.