'Crip Camp': Release date, plot, trailer and all you need to know about the Barack and Michelle Obama produced documentary
Just over fifty years ago, the world witnessed one of the greatest cultural and musical phenomenons in existence, the Woodstock. The age of hippies, love, sex, drugs, and rock n roll culminated in a three-day festival that drew a crowd of over 400,000 people and made history. But unlike many music festivals that followed, this one had one more unique feature to it in the form of Camp Jened.
Festivals are notoriously inaccessible to many folks with disabilities. Despite the movement to increase awareness about disability rights and accessibility needs, most venues tend to not go much further than sticking a ramp near the entrance for wheelchair-users and calling it a day. But Woodstock was different. Because not too far away from the festival was a summer camp set up for teenagers with disabilities that was run by hippies. And unlike many other camps, this one treated its campers with respect and dignity often reserved for able-bodied people.
In the utopia of Camp Jened, these teens found the spark that would lead them to become vocal about their living conditions and demand more. The realization in their voice yielded power that eventually led to the emergence of 'The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement' in Berkeley, which would later turn out to be one of the most important developments in the Disability Rights Movement.
'Crip Camp' hits Netflix in the same year as the 30th anniversary of the 'Americans with Disabilities Act', and takes viewers on a journey into the powerful story of the youth, one of America's largest minority groups fighting for their rights in the 70s and changing the world in the process.
Release date
'Crip Camp' is set to release on Netflix on March 25.
Storyline
The official description for the documentary provided by Netflix reads "In the early 1970s, teenagers with disabilities faced a future shaped by isolation, discrimination and institutionalization. Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp "for the handicapped" in the Catskills, exploded those confines. Jened was their freewheeling Utopia, a place with summertime sports, smoking and makeout sessions awaiting everyone, and campers who felt fulfilled as human beings. Their bonds endured as they migrated West to Berkeley, California - a promised land for a growing and diverse disability community - where friends from Camp Jened realized that disruption and unity might secure life-changing accessibility for millions. Co-directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Nicole Newnham and film mixer and former camper Jim LeBrecht, this joyous and exuberant documentary arrives the same year as the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, at a time when the country's largest minority group still battles daily for the freedom to exist."
Director/Writer
‘Crip Camp’ is directed by James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham, and is executive produced by Higher Ground Productions, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company in partnership with Netflix and in collaboration with Lebrecht, Newnham, Tonia Davis, Priya Swaminathan, Oscar nominee Howard Gertler, Ray Lifchez, Jonathan Logan, Patty Quillin, and Sara Bolder.
Jim LeBrecht is a disability-rights activist, film and theatre sound designer, author, and founder of the audio post-production house 'Berkeley Sound Artists'. His film credits include 'Minding the Gap', 'Unrest', 'The Island President', and 'Audrie & Daisy'. He is also on the board of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. LeBrecht was one of the campers who got to experience the magic of Camp Jened personally and be part of the spark that reinvigorated the Disability Rights Movement.
Speaking about the experience, he has said “Before I went to this camp, I’d gone to some other summer camps for the handicapped, and you were really infantilized. Here, the counselors slept in the same bunk with you, there’s music playing all the time, and there was just this spirit in the air that I’d never experienced before…I wasn’t a burden, and I didn’t feel special, or like an exception, or a problem. Here, I was just a kid.”
Nicole Newnham is an Emmy award-winning producer, director, and writer. She has previously co-directed the Emmy-nominated 'The Revolutionary Optimists' as well as 'The Rape of Europa', which was nominated for a Writers Guild Award and shortlisted for an Academy Award as well. She also produced 'Awavena' and the Emmy-winning 'Collisions', both of which were featured at the Sundance Film Festival and at the World Economic Forum.
Trailer
The trailer for 'Crip Camp' was released on January 22 and featured camp footage from 1971 that captures what life inside Camp Jened looked like for the young teens who had finally found a place where they could simply be themselves.
The documentary also features stories from Camp Jened alums. In the trailer one alum named Ann Capula Freeman talks about how much she wanted to be at Woodstock, and when she arrived at Camp Jened she found herself right there, in the middle of the movement that stemmed from the same culture that created 'Woodstock'. Clips from the 70s show a young, happy camper giggling as she says "come to camp Jened and find yourself, you know!"
Another alum named Denise Sherer Jacobson says, as clips of her at the camp when she was at the camp at age 18 flash on screen with Richie Havens’ 'Freedom' playing in the background, that Camp Jened "...was a utopia. When we were there, there was no outside world."
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