Opening in a few select metropolitan movie theaters is first-time director Reid Davenport’s stunning thought-provoking Sundance Award-Winning Documentary Feature
As a visibly disabled person, filmmaker Reid Davenport set out to make a film about how he sees the world, from either his wheelchair or his two feet, without having to be seen himself. The unexpected arrival of a circus tent outside his apartment in Oakland, CA leads him to consider the history and legacy of P.T. Barnum’s Freak Show and its lingering presence in his daily life in the form of gawking, lack of access, and other forms of ableism. Informed by his position in space, lower to the ground, Davenport captures indelible images, often abstracted into shapes and patterns separate from their meaning. But the circus tent looms in the background, and is reverberated by tangible on-screen interruptions, from unsolicited offers of help to careless blocking of ramps.
Personal and unflinching, I Didn’t See You There forces the viewer to confront the spectacle and invisibility of disability. Offering both a perspective and stylistic approach that are rarely seen, Reid brings an urgently needed storytelling eye to filmmaking with a documentary that is powerful and emotional, thoughtful and raw, intimate and political. TOTALLY UNMISSABLE
Official Film Website: www.ididntseeyoutherefilm.com Facebook @ididntseeyouthere Twitter @IDidntSeeUFilm Instagram @ididntseeyoutherefilm
PS The fact that I am now someone who has to occassionaly depend on a wheelchair gives me personally yet one more reason to have such respect for Davenport with a sincere wish that I hope the film reaches the audience it so deserves
Labels: 2022, documentary, I Didnt See You There, movie preview, Reid Davenport, wheelchair bound
