David Albala
US Premiere
Life as Chilean filmmaker David Albala knew it was shattered the day he was hit by a car. Unable to ever walk again, Albala turns his camera on himself in a journey to discover how to reconstruct his life in a wheelchair-how to find love, redefine his work and develop a new sense of himself as a person who no longer has use of his legs. Exploring the Chilean paraplegic community, Albala finds a cast of new friends and some odd characters who become his personal gurus.
Unlike most documentary films, Albala's incorporates remarkably imaginative and innovative visual techniques to represent and interpret this dramatic alteration in his perspective. The world from the wheelchair-the PersPecPlejia-that Albala finds is at once mundane and existential.
For Albala, the camera is not simply a chronicler of his own condition, but a weapon with which he challenges his culture's assumptions about disability. He climbs stairs, even skis-pushing the limits of what many think a man in a wheelchair can do. He challenges politicians, members of the media and others throughout his South American community to confront a man who cannot meet them standing, eye-to-eye. He challenges other paraplegics to accept and transcend their condition by openly revealing his own vulnerabilities.
Were it not for the accident, Albala presumably would not have made a film about himself. Far from a happy accident, we can nevertheless take solace from his courage and the tremendous wit and endless curiosity with which he shares his journey.
-Nina Gilden Seavey
DIRECTOR BIO
David Albala (pictured) is a journalist and audio-visual producer. His 2005 CNTV-prize winning documentary series THE DIMENSION OF THE (DIS)ABILITY made Albala the first director/host in a wheelchair on Chilean television. Albala also directed the first three seasons of PATIPERROSTERS, a documentary series about the experiences of Chileans looking for new horizons in foreign lands.
alcard@netline.cl
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