Nov 5, 2009 - Texas’ Preeminent Disability Film Festival Screens this Weekend

A Cinematic Celebration of Disability Awareness

AUSTIN, TEXAS- Cinema Touching Disability, the first disability awareness film festival in Texas, returns for its sixth year to celebrate disability awareness with its best and most diverse line-up yet. Cinema Touching Disability opens this Friday and Saturday, November 5th and 6th, at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

Each evening the 2009 Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival will screen feature films, short film competition winners, and special clips, along with presentations of awards to area schools. Coalition of Texans with Disabilities Executive Director Dennis Borel and disability film expert Professor Marshall Mitchell of Washington State will also be in attendance delivering brief addresses.

Friday will feature A Possible Dream: The Andrea Friedman Story, a poignant documentary about a young successful actress with Down Syndrome, and a rare Bruce Lee episode of Longstreet. Bruce Lee appears in this early 70s TV series, about an insurance investigator with blindness, as an antique dealer and Jeet Kune Do expert; together they teach criminals to never underestimate a person with a disability.

Saturday's feature film, The Eyes of Me, is an up-close documentary following four teenagers with blindness over the course of one dynamic year at the Texas School for the Blind in Austin. The Eyes of Me premiered earlier this year at SXSW to a sold-out audience, and has been an official selection at numerous film festivals since. Director Keith Maitland, Producer Patrick Floyd and stars of The Eyes of Me will be present and will participate in a panel discussion immediately following the screening.

Major sponsors of the festival include CORE Healthcare, AT&T, Amerigroup, Evercare, Pfizer and St. David's Foundation. For information about the event and to purchase tickets visit www.ctdfilmfest.org.

Coalition of Texans with Disabilities (CTD) is a 31 year-old, social and economic impact organization representing people of all disabilities. CTD designed the Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival in 2004 to increase awareness about disability and dispel long-held stereotypes through film. CTD's Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival has earned the distinguished Barbara Jordan Media Award and was honored with the Austin Mayor's Media Award.