El Cochecito (The Little Coach) is a new dark comedy with disability and freedom at its center. It’s being shown at the diTHIS! Film Series. The Series showcases films on disability that you probably won’t see anywhere else.
The description for El Cochecito says it is, “a dark comedy about an old man who would kill — literally — for a motorized wheelchair, but not because he needs one, but so he can ride through town with his rambunctious disabled friends.” Finally, a movie showing a wheelchair as an agent of mobility and freedom rather than a cage.
There are other films listed on their site that look interesting including Dance to Me My Song which knocked ’em out at Cannes.
For once, I’m sorry that I don’t live on the East Coast. We’re blessed with disability related activities, culture, and politics here in the Bay Area, but there’s cutting-edge disability art of all kinds all around the globe. It has a hard time getting distributed. Rarely, do art shows travel. Even films like El Cochecito don’t have a venue here. If SuperFest picks them up and if I’m free the weekend of SuperFest, then I’ll see it. Otherwise, PBS is our only hope and they are, understandably, less than radical. Ah, the travails of a marginalized, poor community. I think we’ll survive nonetheless.