A short 1982 film that offers a thought-provoking look at stereotypes about physical handicaps as seen in the story of a teenager with cerebral palsy who decides to try out for cheerleader.
Social & External
The people behind it
Geri Jewell
Cathy
When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.
Mr. Gray is the new Resident in Charge of the Welcome Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Islands are full of life, but the only other Europeans are the "sanctimonious, psalm-singing" brother-sister missionary team of Martha and Owen Jordans, and the Honourable Ted - a hard-drinking, womanizing social outcast whose English family pays him to stay away. Martha and Ted become an unlikely team when cholera threatens the islands and they must do their best to stop its spread.
This drama follows the dilemma of a young, unwillingly pregnant wife who gives her child up for adoption by a businesswoman. Anna doesn't need another mouth to feed. She can barely afford to care for the two she already has so when she discovers that she is six weeks pregnant she readily accepts the cash offer from Terez, her tough boss at the store where she works. If she will isolate herself throughout the pregnancy, secretly bear the child and immediately allow Terez to sign for it, Anna will receive $50,000. Most of the story then focuses upon Anna's emotional processes as she evaluates her choice. Included are dream segments and shots an unborn baby in the womb.
Set amongst the sparse landscape of an isolated farming community, 5 adolescent girls band together to escape their desolate lives. By reclaiming an abandoned farmhouse as their own, they form an intense and obsessive bond that leads them to a dark place where their innermost fears and desires destroy their only safe place.
Mary and Joseph make the hard journey to Bethlehem for a blessed event in this retelling of the Nativity story. This meticulously researched and visually lush adaptation of the biblical tale follows the pair on their arduous path to their arrival in a small village, where they find shelter in a quiet manger and Jesus is born.
After traveling hundreds of miles, a woman must wait another twenty-four hours before she can get an abortion.
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Buenos Aires at the outskirts of XIX century. A society rigid in patriarchal rules. A war between brothers of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Two young and very much in love youngsters, fight for their right to be together. Obeyance and fear sets them apart along more than ten years. When they are finally reunited, will they be able to overcome the pain and tragedy that haunts them?
Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.
A young woman raised in the US returns to her birth country in Eastern Europe after a devastating tragedy. Questioning her sanity and her sexuality, she starts believing she possesses supernatural powers.
In the wake of their parent's separation, three siblings spend the summer in the south of France with their estranged Grandfather. In less than 24 hours, a clash of generations has occurred between the teenagers and the old man. During this turbulent summer, both generations will be transformed by one another.
The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.
An exploration of Jewish American identity in a multilayered portrait of the immigrant experience. A series of first-person addresses delivered by a cross-section of Jewish New Yorkers, whose by turns tragic and humourous tales speak to a collective history of trauma, displacement, and resilience.
Two women attending a women's seminar on personal development walk out in acute embarrassment during the introduction. They meet up with a woman who arrived too late to be admitted. Thrown together by chance, they discuss their emotional lives in intimate detail.
Tabloid reporters are sent by their editor to investigate after the paper recieves a letter from a woman claiming an angel is living with her.
A young mother from Arkansas is forced to travel across state lines in search of an urgent and necessary abortion.
Claire and Robert spend most of their time in a house they own in the beautiful and remote countryside in Italy. Their life seems to be perfect. But when Claire's sister gets murdered in the very same house, the traumatic event shakes up their relationship. Disappointment, fear and resentment they swept under the rug for years, resurface. Revealing the dark side of a blissful love - a dream that turns into a nightmare. It is the story of two people trapped in a dark secret.
Compton's first feature was the autobiographical Stranded, which she wrote, directed, starred in, self-financed and distributed. Released in 1965, the film shares the cinematic experimentation and stylish, youth-centric rebellion of the French New Wave made even more radical by its progressive portrayals of female independence and sexuality, beatnik culture, and discussions of homosexuality. Stranded follows Raina, a young American woman (played by Compton), traveling through Greece with her American lover (Gary Collins), and her French, gay, best friend (Gian Pietro Calasso). Raina partakes in several love affairs rejecting marriage offers for no other reason than she likes her life the way it is. Made just prior to the arrival of second wave feminism, Compton, as writer-director, never judges her on-screen alter-ego the way similar female characters were frequently punished in other films during this era by stigmatizing female sexuality.
Seventeen year old, Emma joins a high school cheerleading team when she moves to Australia with her dad who is a former Air Force Officer.
Melody Brooks, a sixth grader with cerebral palsy, has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but because she is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, she is not given the same opportunities as her classmates. When a young educator notices her student's untapped potential and Melody starts to participate in mainstream education, Melody shows that what she has to say is more important than how she says it.
A bright and determined teen who has mild cerebral palsy strives to be a wrestler on his high school's team and to win over the heart of a classmate, the girl of his dreams.
A fourth grader and her friends deal with bullying from a more popular girl in their class.
No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.
Tells the incredible true story of Amberley Snyder, a nationally ranked rodeo barrel racer who defies the odds after barely surviving a car accident that leaves her paralyzed from the waist down.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
Like some other kids, 12-year-old Trevor McKinney believed in the goodness of human nature. Like many other kids, he was determined to change the world for the better. Unlike most other kids, he succeeded.
In New York City, the lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a house-cleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictability.
Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in.
Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.
After her widowed father dies, deaf teenager Dot moves in with her godparents, Olivia and Paul Deer. The Deers' daughter, Nina, is openly hostile to Dot, but that does not prevent her from telling her secrets to her silent stepsister, including the fact that she wants to kill her lecherous father.
Dramatisation of the true story of the life of Neil "Nello" Baldwin. Born with a mild learning disability but without the burden of social embarrassment & how his inexhaustible ability to see the good in any situation overcame any stigma society tried to label him with.
A lonely metermaid has a psychotic reaction to his medication and becomes convinced he's a superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.
Diana Guzman, a troubled Brooklyn teenager, decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer, all while keeping it a secret from her father.
The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.
A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.
A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.