By Bhargav Acharya
TORONTO, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Academy Award winner Sian Heder’s feature film “Being Heumann” opened the Toronto festival with a heartfelt tale of how disabled people with an indomitable will, courage and commitment accomplished the impossible.
“Being Heumann” tells the story of Judy Heumann, the late American activist — known widely as the “mother of the disability rights movement” — as she led a group of disabled people in their fight against apathy and discrimination that resulted in the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history.
“She led a group of 100 disabled people into a federal building and she held that building until the first legislation was passed around disability rights. So she’s someone everyone should know,” Heder told Reuters on the red carpet ahead of the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“I think all of her work was about how to make invisible people visible and shine a light, and not just shine a light, but create the hard change of inclusion, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Heder said.
Writer-director Heder won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2022 for her film “CODA,” a coming-of-age story about the only hearing member of a deaf family.
Daniel Durant, who received critical acclaim for his part in that film, jumped at the chance to work with Heder again.
“She is truly a magician and you can see it on screen,” he said.
The sit-in in San Francisco in 1977 lasted 26 days and forced the then U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano Jr. to sign regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which ensured access for people with disabilities.
British actor Ruth Madeley plays Heumann while American star Mark Ruffalo portrays Califano. Most of the film’s cast are disabled actors.
“I think bringing so many different sides of Judy into the movie… People know her as this fierce activist who changed the world, so to be able to show her fun side, her wild side, her humor, her joy, all of that, is really special and meaningful,” Madeley said.
The film will be released in select theaters on November 6 before streaming on Apple TV a week later.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Toronto; Editing Neil Fullick)
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