Jim Lebrecht: Last News

Jack Dunn The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will launch the Disabilities, Representation and Film program July 13 in commemoration of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law in July of 1990. Organized by Christiana Ybarra, Academy Museum director of education and programming, the day-long event features workshops, Museum tours, panel discussions, film screenings and a live dance performance in hopes of bringing awareness of disability and representation in film. “Becoming disabled can happen to anyone at any time.

Nonprofit leader Cassidy Dimon, a film industry accessibility and inclusion veteran, has been named the inaugural executive director of FWD-Doc: Filmmakers with Disabilities.

Charna Flam The Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences has launched an Academy Originals podcast, “The Art of the Documentary.” The new podcast is hosted by Oscar-nominee and “Crip Camp” documentarian Jim LeBrecht. The six-episode season will include LeBrecht sitting down with documentary filmmakers, as they reveal to the host and the audience their filmmaking processes. “The Art of the Documentary,” will chronicle “how a filmmaker approaches their subject and how they engage with it,” according to the press release. The podcast will highlight how the various documentarians work to find new filmmaking approaches, all in an effort to tell their stories in innovative ways. LeBrecht and guests will discuss how they achieve special access and how far they’ll go to get their story — even if that means taking dangerous risks.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentUCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report found some improvement in 2022 in regards to hiring women and people of color, but activist group FWD-Doc is demanding that UCLA address other overlooked groups such as LGBTQIA+ individuals and the “invisible minority” — disabled people — in the industry.Jim LeBrecht, co-founder of FWD-Doc and co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp” (2020), states, “UCLA’s report that stands for promoting diversity is an egregious case of exclusion and perpetuates the misconception that people with disabilities do not exist in the entertainment industry. In light of ‘CODA’s’ three Oscar wins at the recent 94th Academy Awards ceremony, this oversight reinforces FWD-Doc’s assertion that this report is incomplete and not comprehensive.” He adds that other groups have been under-represented, such as LGBTQIA+ people, but were ignored in the study.The ninth annual report, from UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences, covers the top 200 theatrical English-language releases in 2021, ranked by global box office, as well as all major streaming films based on total household ratings.

The new Netflix documentary “Crip Camp” centers on Camp Jened, a summer camp for those with disabilities. As told in the doc, it would go on to spark something of a revolution in the disability rights movement.