[ Contents | Search | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Jeff Shames
Date: 21 Oct 2006
Time: 08:24:42 -0500
Remote Name: 205.188.116.202
Hi Anita- I appreciate being able to read your essay and the ensuing comments. This is a complicated issue. On one hand, we who stutter affect other people's reactions, by our own behaviors as we stutter. But there severity of stuttering varies so much. And it is also true that part of how stuttering is disabing is because of how other people treat us. I produced "Spit It Out," a film about my life journey with stuttering. After the film was finished we began to enter it in film festivals. The director and co-producer, Jonathan Skurnik, suggested that we enter "Spit It Out" in disability festivals. At first I felt ambivalent about this. But I came to realize that this was a part of the film's finding its place in the world. In fact, "Spit It Out" has done exceedingly well at disability film festivals, and has received two awards. (In fact, on October 28 the film is being screened at the 3rd Annual Reel Life Disability Film Festival in Dearborn, MI.) Producing this film was a part of my coming to accept myself as person who stutters. It is an ever evolvign process about how my stutter affects me, and how it is seen in the world. Jeff Shames