Todd Herman (USA)
Filmmaker Bio: Todd Herman is a filmmaker, photographer, and a long time ally of the disability rights movement. His film and photography work ranges from a newly released photography book about several marginalized communities in Kathmandu, Nepal; to photography and video projects exploring the connections between photography, memory and mourning; to videos and exhibitions around themes of sexuality and disability. His work exhibits widely. www.todd-herman.com
Writer Bio: Patricia Berne is a disabled woman of color and has been active in racial justice and gender based violence prevention fields for over fifteen years. She directed the Project on Race, Disability and Eugenics at the Center for Genetics and Society, and is a board member with San Francisco Women Against Rape. Currently Patricia is the artistic director of “Sins Invalid” a traveling performance group working with issues around sexuality and disability.
Title: I Cannot Speak Without Shaking, 2007, 5:00
I Cannot Speak Without Shaking is a potent re-working of several Nazi propaganda films that were made to advance arguments against people with disabilities during world war two. Superimposed over the images, we read intimate journal entries written by Patricia Berne – an activist who fights for disability justice, herself a survivor of significant physical trauma.The video looks closely at eugenics as well as to its contemporary ideological artifacts – cultural genocide.