D4D Film Fest reflections from Dean Z

Reflections from Anisa Zvonkovic, dean of the College of Health and Human Performance

“American Veteran” – screened Friday, 2/21, 1 pm

I was a crowdsource contributor to this film and had seen it before. The film screening started with a greeting by director Julie Cohen recorded just for us. D4D director David Loy provided an introduction in which he mentioned that some of the early scenes from Afghanistan and Iraq might trigger extreme reaction and that we had a therapist in the audience, who was introduced and could talk in the foyer to anyone who wanted to leave the theatre. The film director mentioned that she chose to profile Nick Mendes because he had such a sense of humor and spirit and that she saw the film as a comedy because of his character.

I see important connections to HHP in the focus on physical adaptation and the holistic view of his well-being and adjustment. His father left his partner and job to be at Nick’s bedside throughout his rehab period and into his first home setting. We learned about the ending of his father and his mother’s marriage when Nick was a child and the father’s later identification as a gay man, and we learned from Nick’s commander about the youth experiences many of the young troops bring into their combat experience. I felt like this was an important connection to HDFS and Social Work, in that the events of the past affected the decisions made by the young adult and how his life, and those of others, unfolded. Nick stated that his paralysis was because “I had a dangerous job.” During the film, his commander visits for the first time and shows him photos of the tank after the IED exploded on it and where Nick was in the tank. That prompted him to say how lucky he was to get out of there alive, thanks to his brothers in arms. There is a segment of the film that talks about how combat field operations are such that more seriously injured soldiers make it out alive than in previous wars – this is a public health topic and how they adjust, frequently as very young people, is an important public health and exercise physiology issue.

In addition to these prior experiences being revealed, we get to witness the development of his romantic relationship, then marriage. We also get to see the friendship and quasi-family bonding that occurs with other veterans, as well as the beneficial and difficult connections made with organizations that work to provide services to veterans. Of course, I especially appreciated these parts of the film and kept thinking that real stories are better than fiction, and was so curious about these relationships. The film included footage of the couple answering the question of what each one got from the other. The answers were so similar to any other relationship – Nick’s wife said, “it’s impossible to be sad around him, he is so fun and funny.” However, the film never sugarcoats the difficulties they face – we see her organizing and dispensing the 80 something pills he must take each day, we see the obstacles to showering and navigating in spaces.

The importance of recreation in his adjustment is illustrated when a group tries to provide hunting and finally a fishing expedition for Nick. The enjoyment of the fishing experience just reminded me of recreation as a human right (a mantra I use when talking about RCSC). We clearly see the obstacles to access (relevant to IDMR) and the story ends with him moving into a house thanks to a veteran organization.

Several of our ROTC students were in the audience and I did find myself wondering about how they experienced the film. Many of them have a goal to be an officer, so the footage of the officer in the film and how he regarded the sense of duty, obligation to fellow soldiers, and his responsibility in the deployment of young soldiers, particularly with the deployment that resulted in deaths and injuries, must have been very compelling to them. The panel afterward featured ECU professor and veteran Dr. Carmen Russoniello and Dr.Venkata Jonnalagadda, who is associate chief of staff at the Greenville Veterans Administration. The discussion focused on how veterans with subsequent behavioral health and other health concerns present to the VA and about the challenges with adjustment in this war and previous wars. 

“Fixed” – screened Friday, 2/21, 4 pm

This film garnered quite a bit of attention from our colleagues in Kinesiology and the interdisciplinary panelists provided quite a bit of fodder for further thought. It raised important questions from several vantage points about the pace, nature, and access of prosthetics that perform better than the human body. The viewer got to see and understand a bit of the history of several individuals with disabilities, some of whom were either disability advocates, humanities trained disabilities scholars, technicians, or engineers who worked in the field. I think these dual roles that individuals had were highly informative because they reminded me again of the disability rights movement and the notion that people with disabilities are the ultimate hackers, who have the best vantage point on the uses and inefficiencies of technologies designed to help them.

Among other questions raised by the film were: when are technologies designed to help people actually useful? Are they sometimes designed to look like “natural” body parts in order to make the able-bodied people feel comfortable rather than to be useful? For example, Gregor Wolbring (one of the main characters in the movie, a biochemist and abilities studies scholar) preferred to navigate around his home and workplace without his chair; he said, “Crawling is the new walking” and appeared to only use his wheelchair when navigating out in public spaces. The viewer got to see how his preference made people feel uncomfortable, such as when we see him deal with boarding an airplane.

Two of the main characters, Dominika Bednarska and Patty Berne, raised questions about access to the types of prosthetics that provide performance better than the “natural body” – they spoke about how our current Western society fails in providing access, and how they would prefer that access be equalized rather than performance be optimized for a select few. The film devoted quite a bit of airtime to Hugh Herr, bionics engineer and holder of 14 patents who was injured in a ski accident, as a living example of prosthetics with superior performance. In the same vein, Fernanda Castelo is profiled in her role as a “test pilot” of an exoskeleton that allows individuals with limited leg mobility to walk. There were also experts who spoke of genetic testing and our country’s fraught experience with eugenics.

One of the things I had forgotten about this film was how many scenes were divided by frames of dance performances from dance companies that were either exclusively people with limited mobility, people with Down’s syndrome, or were integrated dance troupes, including segments that focused attention on the ways bodies were used differently among those with artificial limbs. They raised questions of what is “human performance” and like many other parts of this film, left the viewer to feel and think about the answers. These were startlingly innovative elements of the film.

In the panel that followed the film, a bioethicist, a physical therapist prosthetics expert, and others provided differing viewpoints about the way we should think about these technologies. In my subsequent discussions with colleagues about this film, we have discussed how the film basically provided many different viewpoints on the use of these technologies, and left the viewers unsettled as to how they should think about them. To me, it’s provocative and begs for further discussion. Should the scientists innovate and leave it to the ethicists to regulate? How do we ensure thoughtful use of technologies?

“Murderball” – screened Friday, 2/21, 7 pm

This film was the most highly attended of all the films in the festival. It provided a very entertaining experience – there were “heroes”, there was a “villain,” there was suspense around how successful the US team would be in the Paralympic competition. The rules of the game, the designs of the chairs used in competition, and many other dimensions, were portrayed in an interesting and engaging manner.

From my personal vantage point, I of course was very interested in the romantic and family relationships in the story. Zupan’s class reunion, the circumstances of the accident that led to his spinal cord injury, and the relationship with his parents and his girlfriend. Given my background in relationship development, I especially appreciated how the guys were talking about what young women who might be interested in them want to know about their injuries. I suppose that segment of the movie justified the R rating!

David Loy knew these guys from his work in Atlanta with spinal cord injury participants. He achieved a real coup: getting Zupan, Lugano, and the director Dana Adam Shapiro to Zoom into a discussion with us after the film. When Zupan’s face appeared on our screen, ready to answer questions from us, a collective “Oooohhh” arose from the audience. The men were very engaging. Zupan credited Shapiro with changing the view of society toward people who use wheelchairs. He said now they are regarded as athletes (“Gladiators” was a term used, and the custom-designed chairs certainly support that term), whereas before, they were frequently regarded as people who needed assistance in many ways, including with cognitive abilities. The way that participating in this sport changes the lives of the individuals (now it’s a co-ed sport), changes them physically and psychologically, is so in line with HHP’s view of well-being and mission to optimize well-being. It demonstrates how physical activity and adapting activity is vital to well-being and sense of self, and how societal views evolve. I just loved seeing what had become of the guys in the film.

“Intelligent Lives” – screened Saturday, 2/22, 9 am

The last film in our festival was Saturday morning at 9 am. As I have felt when I’ve attended other film festivals, I woke up to think it was hard to drag myself out of bed for the last day, especially for a morning film. But in many ways, this film was the perfect cap to the entire festival. It was such a nice ending to the series. It profiled young people with diverse intellectual and other differing abilities. It did not gloss over the ways in which young people had been poorly treated and even abused and neglected in our history, and even in the case of one of the characters with a mental retardation and Downs syndrome diagnosis, in her own youth experience. It demonstrated the ways that she can participate in gainful employment and the supports necessary to accomplish that. So much relevance for HDFS, Social Work, and our adaptive education colleagues who train students to work with people with limitations. The young man who graduated from Syracuse University and was a teaching assistant there as the movie ended provided a strong example of the disconnect between some elements of disability and elements of high skill and functionality. I really appreciated the clear view of what is needed to establish and maintain the independence he had – the legal aspects of him making his own decisions, the circle of support meetings, the burgeoning romantic relationship he had, among other elements.

The panel afterward was comprised of people with limitations, family members, and people who work with such populations. They had much experience to bear on these issues. Some of the best discussion was provoked by moderator David Loy’s question about communication and about the importance of observing and taking time to become familiar with communication.

It’s hard to draw a general conclusion from the stories in the film. I was especially struck with the diversity in gender, parental immigration status, ethnicity, and religion among the characters profiled. It was so interesting to see the family and especially sibling support. I think in some ways, the point of profiling these individuals was for the viewer not to draw conclusions about all people; as the saying goes, “if you know one person with autism, you know one person.” The larger point is that each of these characters had been, or could have been, assumed to have way less capability intellectually, socially, and emotionally, than they proved to have. I have ordered the artwork of Naeer Shaheed already!

A few last comments:

Our first film, “Gleason” was scheduled for Thursday night but was cancelled due to snow. We will show it on March 18, at 7 p.m., in conjunction with the Coopstrong race that weekend.

We are extremely grateful to the Student Activities Board for their partnership. It was invaluable to keeping costs down and to promotional material for the film series.

We are eager to continue the conversation and urge folks who viewed these films to blog on their own. We will take the best ideas from this festival, modify our plans, and produce a film festival yearly with each of our Prevention Science Initiatives. With the keenly interested participants we had, we will continue to work in committees related to instruction, research, engagement, and product development, toward a more inclusive world. Our next event this year with the Disability Initiative is the Inclusion and Access Summit on April 17.