The New Indian Express ·
Siân Heder on Being Heumann: "It was important for us to find Judy Heumann together"
After earning accolades for writing and directing the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black (2013-2018) and the Sundance film Tallulah (2016), Siân Heder went on to create history with CODA, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2022. It also bagged the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, with Troy Kotsur becoming the first deaf actor to take home an acting trophy—for Best Supporting Actor.
Heder’s third film, Being Heumann, on activist Judith Heumann, known as “Mother of Disability Rights Movement”, was the opening film at the Toronto International Film Festival last week. Set in 1977, the Apple Original film is about a lesser-known but extraordinary movement for accessibility. British actor Ruth Madeley, who was born with spina bifida, plays Heumann, who led a group of Americans with disabilities to hold the government accountable, demanding a positive change in civil rights legislation for people with disabilities. In their aim to have the US Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano (Mark Ruffalo) sign the crucial regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, they began by occupying a Federal building in San Francisco, and then went to Washington DC and even had a sit-in at Califano’s house.
A vital, transformative but also colourful and joyous documentation, Being Heumann is moving, inspiring, while being an unabashedly entertaining feel-good drama. The New Indian Express met Heder and Madeley at Toronto’s St. Regis hotel for a quick chat.
