The Sprout Film Festival

Here’s guest contributor Becky Ohlsen with a preview of an under-the-radar film event taking place this weekend.

Here's something you might not think about too often and probably won't see in any summer blockbusters: the subtleties of a romance between two guys with Down's syndrome. As evoked by Israeli-Canadian filmmaker Shira Avni in her short film John and Michael, the relationship is playful and tender, with lots of giggling. Avni animates the story in clay on backlit glass panels; it looks like a daguerrotype-fingerpainting hybrid, full of movement and flickering brown shadows.

Avni's animated short is part of the Sprout Film Festival, a weekend showcase of films related to people with developmental disabilities. The films — documentaries, shorts and features from Germany, Finland, Australia, the UK and across the US — show people with disabilities like autism and Down's syndrome navigating ordinary, everyday experiences: finding jobs and apartments, getting married, making art, flirting on the subway.

Friday's program includes Ken Browne's 30-minute documentary Look, I'm in College, about four African-American kids with autism who participate in a new "inclusion program" at Pace University, and Sarah Gurfield's feature Mr Blue Sky, a love triangle involving a girl with Down's syndrome. Besides John and Michael, the highlight of Saturday's program is ARC, a short film/music video in which a young hipster with Down's syndrome imagines himself falling in love with a model, only to find that his disability, and the prejudice it provokes, hound him even in fantasy. Others to look for are Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott, a look at the fiber artist, who spent most of her life in institutions before finally achieving recognition for her work; Svefn-G-Englar, a nine-minute music video conceived by Iceland's Sigur Ros; Loose Contact_one will meet, German filmmaker Eike Swoboda's short feature about a shy couple who meet on public transit and tentatively begin to court each other; and NYC filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb's documentary Today's Man, about her brother, Nicky, who was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 21.

The program finishes Sunday with the feature-length documentary Autism: The Musical, directed by Tricia Regan. The multiple award-winning film follows five autistic kids from Los Angeles over six months as they write, rehearse and perform their own full-length musical production.


May 9-11 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Uris Education Center (Fifth Ave & 81st St). Tickets $8, weekend pass $45, available online or at the Sprout office, in room 128 in the NY International Hostel, 891 Amsterdam Ave at 103rd St, 11am-6pm Monday - Friday.