Handicap & Family
In collaboration with
Throughout the history of documentary cinema, from Mario Ruspoli (A Look at Madness, 1962) to Nicolas Philibert (Every Little Thing, 1996; On the Adamant, 2023) via Johan van der Keuken (Hermann Slobbe, 1966), Werner Herzog (Handicapped Future, 1971) and Frederick Wiseman (Deaf, 1986; Multi-Handicapped, 1996; Blind, 1987), many filmmakers have taken an interest in people with diverse abilities (physical, intellectual, cognitive, mental, sensory, learning, language and communication). Yet only a few have filmed a relative who is deaf, neurodivergent, and/or living with one or more disabilities. The question: "How can I film my child or a member of my family who is living with a disability?" becomes one of "What can I share of their experience, of our intimacy, while preserving their dignity?” Filming is a living, human, and dialogic experience that links aesthetics and ethics.
The films in Handicap & Family: Towards a New Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking place us at the heart of a number of families, with each film representing a means of weaving new relationships - whether it’s to "tame" to quote Claire Doyon (Pénélope My Love) - or preserve links with one's relatives. Sound recordings and film shots are often intended to provide care, attention, and concern for the well-being of a loved one (The Brother). Filming others means learning to respect their rhythm, whether that of young children (Alphée of the Stars, Pénélope My Love), a medicated brother (The Worlds of Vincent), or a running athlete training for the Special Olympics World Games (Champions). A number of themes run through these documentary films, including the body (fragile, constrained, sculpted, trained, overpowered, clumsy, drawn, tired from taking medication, static, in motion, victorious), time (before and after an illness, the moment a diagnosis is announced and accepted… or not, of an uncertain or inversely desired future) and the refusal to view a human being solely in terms of his or her illness or disability.
Mouloud Boukala
Professor at the École des médias, UQAM
Chairholder of the CRCMHA
5 products
Pénélope My Love
Subscription access
_Pénélope My Love_ traces the journey of a mother and her autistic daughter through the years. It tells the story of different stages: the shock of the diagnosis, the declaration of war, the abdication of weapons, to finally accepting and discovering another way of existence.
Alphée of the Stars
Subscription access
Alphée has a rare genetic disorder that hampers her development. Yet she continues to defy medical expectations. In a moving declaration of love for his daughter, filmmaker Hugo Latulippe and his family steal away for a year, focusing on his daughter's learning, so that she can integrate into a regular classroom when they get home.
The Worlds of Vincent
_The Worlds of Vincent_ is a personal and intimate journey at the heart of madness. An incursion in the world of schizophrenia, an encounter between a brother and his sister on the path of life, questioning mental illness, acceptance, family, love...
The Brother
Subscription access
Suffering from an illness causing paralysis in his body, Kaïs is awakened every morning by a different member of his family. Stuck in a frozen body, he dreams at night that he is the hero of his favorite manga, along with his brothers, Fehd the bodybuilder, and Zaïd the ninja
Pénélope My Love
Subscription access
_Pénélope My Love_ traces the journey of a mother and her autistic daughter through the years. It tells the story of different stages: the shock of the diagnosis, the declaration of war, the abdication of weapons, to finally accepting and discovering another way of existence.
Alphée of the Stars
Subscription access
Alphée has a rare genetic disorder that hampers her development. Yet she continues to defy medical expectations. In a moving declaration of love for his daughter, filmmaker Hugo Latulippe and his family steal away for a year, focusing on his daughter's learning, so that she can integrate into a regular classroom when they get home.
The Worlds of Vincent
_The Worlds of Vincent_ is a personal and intimate journey at the heart of madness. An incursion in the world of schizophrenia, an encounter between a brother and his sister on the path of life, questioning mental illness, acceptance, family, love...
The Brother
Subscription access
Suffering from an illness causing paralysis in his body, Kaïs is awakened every morning by a different member of his family. Stuck in a frozen body, he dreams at night that he is the hero of his favorite manga, along with his brothers, Fehd the bodybuilder, and Zaïd the ninja
