Tim Gray Senior Vice President The indie film “Daruma” — which illustrates the importance of authentic casting with disabled actors — will hold its world premiere June 28, just a few days before the start of Disability Pride Month.
The film is part of the Dances With Films Festival, which runs June 22-July 2 at the TCL Chinese theaters in Hollywood. The festival, in its 26th year, also will screen three documentaries about disabilities: “Abled,” directed by Einar Thorsteinsson about Paralympian Blake Leeper; “Baldy for the Blind” (producer-director Drea Castro), centering on a group of blind hikers attempting to climb Mt.
Baldy; and “You Have No Idea” (director Alexander Jeffery), concerning a woman trying to get treatment for her autistic son.
There is also the short “Leak,” from writer-director Jordan Martin, a dystopian drama about a man and his deaf mother. “Daruma,” directed by Alexander Yellen and written by Kelli McNeil-Yellen, is a character study of two friends driving across the country with one man’s young daughter.
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