email Join our email list! divider Register Login cartCart
Icarus Film
Films from independent
producers worldwide.
32 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201divider(718) 488 8900
From The Fanlight Collection
Changing Identities: A Story of Traumatic Injury and Art
Directed by Daniel Labbato
 Text Size  Increase Font Size   Decrease Font Size   divider Printable VersionPrintable Version

Each year, approximately 1.5 million people have their lives suddenly and irrevocably changed by traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries or stroke. Pat Gardner, a New York Banker, was driving to work when she was hit by another car. The accident left her apparently uninjured. The police who responded to the accident put her on a commuter train to the city, but Pat didn't know who she was or where she was going, and wandered around Penn Station for hours before finally asking for help. While current therapies can leave many people like Pat unable to function, or institutionalized indefinitely, this documentary explores a powerful alternative.

In 1999, retired artist Bill Richards founded The Art Studio at the Northeast Center for Special Care, in upstate New York. It was modeled on a similar program he had created for injured young adults in Harlem. Because Richards believes every person has the ability to become an artist, he doesn't consider the participants as "patients" or "students," nor does he suggest themes, give assignments, teach technique, or offer criticism. The unconventional studio is open all day, allowing patients to come and go as they please. The goal is not art as therapy, but the creation of art for its own sake, and as a means for the artists to rediscover who they are or forge new identities. In addition to Pat, they include: Erich Miethner, a musician who became a quadriplegic after a freak accident; he works with the paint brush held in his mouth; Tusay, a carpenter and poet before his debilitating stroke; and Jurgen Blank, who was stricken by brain tumors as a result of agent-orange exposure.

Today Pat has become an accomplished painter, and takes particular pride in the fact that it is not something she had ever done — or even thought of doing — before. Changing Identities documents the metamorphosis of a number of Art Studio "neighbors" like Pat, as they redefine who they are through this unique studio art program, and begin to see themselves not as people with disabilities but as artists.

Picture This... Disability Film Festival
Western Psychological Association
National Health Information, Merit Award
International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA)
WorldFest Houston Film Festival, Bronze Award

57 minutes / Color
Release: 2007
Copyright: 2006

For colleges, universities, government agencies, hospitals and corporations

This DVD is sold with a license for institutional use and Public Performance rights.

Subject areas:
Access, Rights & Realities, Captioned Films, Disabilities, Disabilities & the Arts, Fanlight Collection, Mental Illness, Brain Disorders, Neuroscience & Neurology

Home | New | Titles | Subjects | Ordering   
About | Best Sellers | Filmmakers | Screenings   
address
  Follow Us! On...
Facebook Follow Icarus Films on Twitter Instagram Vimeo YouTube
Copyright (c) 2024, Icarus Films
Last Updated January 25, 2024 [Build 3.0.a060-d7]
Privacy Policy