New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. Jeffrey Brown has our look for our arts and culture series, Canvas. Transcript:Camp Cool Kidz Transcript:Camporee Transcript:Cookin' Cookies Transcript:Cult Camp D Transcript:David Gets Hard E Transcript:Eggs Benefits Transcript:Escape from Camp Campbell I [15] Benjamin Lee of The Guardian wrote, "this impactful film shines a light on a forgotten fight for equality". When we were there, there was no outside world. So something like Willowbrook, you know, this horrible institution in New York State, from which a bunch of Camp Jedenian campers came, and which Jim remembers kind of being haunted by having seen Geraldo Rivera's expose about it in the '70s, you know, how could we put that in there without it kind of ruining the feeling that we were painstakingly creating, which was allowing people to come into Camp Jened and not ever feel any of those feelings that people are almost uniquely used to feeling when they see disability represented in the media, you know. Sara Luterman is a freelance journalist who covers disability policy and politics. Summaries. Watch on. MR. LeBRECHT: That's a really wonderful question. Anne Azzi Davenport is the Senior Coordinating Producer of CANVAS at PBS NewsHour. Syllabus of Workshops May 17: Crip Camp Kick-Off: Disability Community Culture & Identity May 24: Shedding Shame & Embracing Wholeness: Why We Must Address Internalized Ableism (Canceled) May 31: Disability, Race, Class, & Gender: Intersectionality Why cant the real world be this accessible to them? Another central character is Judy Heumann, whose early roots as a leader of the movement demonstrate how youthful experiences in activism can shape a lifetime of progress and change. Here, finally, is our history, recorded honestly for posterity. (The film is also directed by Nicole Newnham.) On March 25 Netflix released Crip Camp, a documentary that dives into the wild lives of disabled teens who grapple with isolation, find love at a summer camp, build community, and grow into fierce advocates for equality. And kind of filling that in, I think, enabled us to see something which otherwise we wouldn't be able to see, which is the impact of something very small and how it grows into something big. The occasional narrator and co-director (with Nicole Newnham) is Jim LeBrecht, who was born with spina bifida but decided early in life to hurl himself at every challenge. "[7] At the end of the lunch meeting, LeBrecht told Newnham, "You know, I've always wanted to see this film made about my summer camp," and she replied, "Oh, that's nice, why?" "So at 4:30 in the afternoon, we formed this huge circle. MR. LeBRECHT: Don't frame it as limitations. And, you know, I think one of the most profound things that this film advances is the importance of community and social space, right? Everything Everywhere All at Once has won in every category they were nominated for. [4] Starring Larry Allison, Judith Heumann, James LeBrecht, Denise Sherer Jacobson, and Stephen Hofmann, the film focuses on those campers who turned themselves into activists for the disability rights movement and follows their fight for accessibility legislation. Nicole, can you speak to that briefly, before we have to say goodbye? And "liberation" is exactly the world. So, you know, the trust and support of everybody really made a big difference. MS. HORNADAY: Well, you know, that brings up a really good--one of my questions is just this wealth of footage that you had to work with. Jim, could you give us a little history of Camp Jened and the ethos behind what, as one of the campers described, what became a utopia? They were announcing: Paraplegics stop traffic in Manhattan. Why? I mean, I had been colleagues with Jim for 15 years, and friends, and over that time Jim had really opened up a sort of portal for me into disability, and a way of looking at disability that I hadn't before known. Disability rights aren't normally featured in high school history books and often don't get written down at all. You know, I have to improvise almost every day, and I am not the only one. And so, we had a couple of ways of working on it. The documentary follows the journey of the disabled Camp Jened campers, many of whom went on to lead the disability rights movement in the United States. Crip Camp shared with insight, clarity, humor, and beauty the experiences of one group of disabled young people and their journey to activism and adulthood, and in doing so, provides an opportunity for all to delve into the rich and complicated history of disability activism, culture, and history. MS. HORNADAY: It works beautifully. That is a handicapped parking spot. The best musical instrument is a love triangle. It was a revolution, and as told in Crip Camp by filmmakers Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht (the sound guy whose story started us off) it's a raucous odyssey filled with twists, setbacks, smart strategizing, and unlikely strokes of luck. Several took part in a harrowing 1977 sit-in in San Francisco to demand federal regulations guaranteeing civil rights for the disabled. And at that point we had a name of an organization. If you want to marvel at human ingenuity, perseverance and triumph while youre in quarantine, Crip Camp has you covered, whether you have a disability or not. Crip Camp had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2020. [11] The film was set to be released in a limited release that same day, but the theatrical release was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And when my wife, Sarah, who is one of our producers, and I were driving around, and I go, "Let's go up one more block because there's a crip spot on the right side up ahead." You can find her work in Vox, The Nation, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. And certainly, when I got there, in the early '70s, indeed it truly was what Denise says, a utopia. Nicole, how critical do you think intersectionality was to the success of the disability rights movement? [6], Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote, "The spirit of revolutionrighteously angry yet full of bonhomie, demanding but generous in its reachis alive and well in the film. No one at Camp Jened couldve imagined that those summers in the woods together would be the beginnings of a revolution. Among his signature works at the NewsHour: a multi-year series, Culture at Risk, about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHours online Art Beat; and hosting the monthly book club, Now Read This, a collaboration with The New York Times. And even that idea of kind of like becoming and telling your own story, all of those things are embodied in our project. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Jim's personal story would bring you into that. And we both remember this day where we got this email, and he said, "Yeah, we have this footage, and we have got 5 1/2 hours of it.". And through those stories, we can show both how far weve come and where we must go next. Yes. But there was this trust that I could say anything, and that if I felt like there was something that made me very uncomfortable that, you know, we would talk about it. MS. HORNADAY: And to our Washington Post Live audience, please tune in tomorrow when we will have a conversation with actor, playwright, and director, Colman Domingo about his recent role in Ma Raineys Black Bottom, and that will be hosted by my colleague, Jonathan Capehart. It's a summer camp for, you know, the handicapped, run by hippies. Crip Camp is a useful reminder that while Jimmy Carter might be our greatest ex-president, he was a miserable prick toward the end of his term. The most wrenching scene might well be early, at Camp Jened, when a young woman named Nancy expresses her thoughts in a group discussion and the sounds that come out of her mouth with great urgency dont resemble words to the helpless interviewer, who turns to the others for a translation. Of course, you made "The Rape of Europa" about the theft and destruction of European works of art during World War II. All of us do. The other day I have decided to watch a documentary on Netflix, called 'Crip Camp'. I think it is still, to this day, the longest occupation of a Federal building, a sit-in at a Federal building. Barack e Michelle Obama atuam como produtores executivos sob a bandeira da Higher Ground Productions. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution 2020 | Maturity Rating: R | 1h 48m | Political Documentaries A groundbreaking summer camp galvanizes a group of teens with disabilities to help build a movement, forging a new path toward greater equality. MS. NEWNHAM: You know, this issue that you raise, it was probably the most important thing for us to get right in the film, and we kind of ended up talking about how there were like these two tractor ruts that people's brains go into around disability. MR. LeBRECHT: Yeah. This documentary proves we can tell human stories about disabled people and our lives. It was released on March 25, 2020, by Netflix and received acclaim from critics. But Camp Jened was an unusual camp for young people with a wide range of disabilities. Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. Those are really special. She shouts out all the ladies (mothers and wives) in the room. Camp Jened, the ramshackle summer camp run by hippies that is the heart of our documentary Crip Camp, exploded those confines.In its freewheeling, radical atmosphere of equity, a community was born, a community of campers of different disabilities and backgrounds, and their disabled and . Transcript: Oscar Spotlight: "Crip Camp" By Washington Post Live March 31, 2021 at 6:31 p.m. EDT Article This article is free to access. Unions throw in their lot with demonstrators, along with the Black Panthers and a local lesbian bar, but the enemy of 504 isnt Nixon or Reagan (although neither comes off well) but HEW secretary under Jimmy Carter Joseph Califano, who was at Lyndon Johnsons side in the creation of the 60s Great Society. Some still arent. No, thats not strictly true thats my empowerment-speak. The wild thing is that this camp changed the world, and nobody knows this story. In April 1977, Heumann . How A Law To Protect Disabled Americans Became Imitated Around The World, Looking Back On 20 Years Of Disability Rights. At Camp Jened, the campers had seen what could be. So, I hope that the viewers will take these lessons to heart. "Best physical therapy ever," he says. In this scene at a New York City protest. [1] MS. HORNADAY: Well, and, you know, you reminded me, when we were looking at the "Crip Camp" poster, waiting for this session to start, I think it has the distinction of being rated R, to which the great crab epidemic of whatever year it was [laughter]. The problem is, because the disabled landscape on film and TV remains heavily skewed towards white men, and disabilities remain aesthetically relatable to the able-bodied, "Crip Camp . Its U.S. representative from California Phillip Burton, who goes after Eidenberg and drags him back definitely a roof-raising moment if you were to see this in a theater.