The Sixth Annual Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival will feature
The Eyes of Me

Four blind teens. One dynamic year. How do you see yourself, when you can't see at all?

This year's featured film, "The Eyes of Me", presents an extraordinary look at four blind teenagers. The parallell stories of two freshmen and two seniors unfold over the course of one dynamic year at the Texas School for the Blind.

This experiential documentary captures a textured portrait of its characters' lives. Director Keith Maitland worked with the acclaimed animation team of Jason Archer and Paul Beck (A Scanner Darkly, Waking Life) and the film's subjects to produce sequences of stylized rotoscopic animation to compliment the film's observational aesthetic.

As an added bonus, Keith Maitland will be introducing his film at this year's festival!

The Festival Will Also Include

Short Clips Featuring Steven Hawking, Hugh Laurie

Watch Steven Hawking play himself in "The Simpsons" and "Star Trek the Next Generation"

See Hugh Laurie before he was Dr. House in the British series A Bit of Fry & Laurie!

A possible Dream: The Angela Friedman Story

Andrea Friedman lives an ideal life. A film and television actress, Andrea has starred in a successful ABC network television series. And she has recently been accepted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She is also an accomplished speaker and is sought after to give keynote addresses at conventions all around the world. When she's not filming or touring, Andrea lives in beautiful West L.A. and drives her own BMW to work in a downtown law office. Weekends are spent with friends, shopping, going to movies, dances or walking by the beach with her boyfriend. It is a life that most young women only dream about... except that Andrea has Down syndrome!

Short Film Competition

This year will also host the third short film competition. We are excited to announce the competition has been expanded to include emerging filmmakers. Do not miss the chance to submit your film in this year's competition.

For the past two years the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities has combined a student film competition with the Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival. This year we are expanding the film competition to include independent filmmakers. Although there is still a separate division for secondary level students (grades 6-12), and the length of the films (3-20 minutes) remains the same we are now accepting independent filmmakers to the competition.

Special congratulations go out to the winners of the the 2008 film competition:

Debbie Finely, whose entry "Mind Over Polio" won first place in the college division
and Michael Espinoza, whose entry "The War to End All Wars" won first place in the high school division.

To learn how well the other entries did, select this link