Apple TV’s ‘Being Heumann’ sets release date as Ruth Madeley takes on Mark Ruffalo
Ruth Madeley takes center stage in the first teaser for Apple TV’s 'Being Heumann.' She plays disability-rights activist Judith Heumann, whose push for change led her and hundreds of other protesters to occupy a federal building in San Francisco for 26 days.
The demonstration took place in 1977, as the group protested the government's failure to implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Standing in their way is Secretary of Health and Human Services, Joseph A. Califano Jr., played by Mark Ruffalo, and the teaser makes their conflict the heart of the film.
'Being Heumann' will open in select theaters on November 6 before arriving on Apple TV on November 13. Apple shared the teaser exclusively with PEOPLE, giving viewers their first look at Madeley and Ruffalo in the film. Dylan O’Brien, Will Brill, Madeline Delp, Michael Patrick Thornton, Antwan Toliver, Ray Fisher, Rob Delaney and Rein Barcel round out the cast. The theatrical release comes one week before the film becomes available to Apple TV subscribers.
Heumann contracted polio when she was 18 months old and went on to become the first wheelchair user to work as a teacher in New York. She later emerged as one of the leaders of the 1977 protest, which called on the federal government to implement Section 504 regulations. Section 504, part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability in programs receiving federal funding.
“They wouldn’t take Judy Heumann’s phone calls, so she took their building. In 1977, a young disabled woman and a scrappy coalition of outsiders decide they’ve had enough. What begins as one impulsive act becomes the longest occupation of a federal building in American history, as hundreds spontaneously seize government offices and refuse to leave until the bureaucrat in their way takes action,” the film’s official synopsis states.
The sit-in eventually became the longest occupation of a federal building in US history, and the film traces how the protesters kept the pressure on the government. Ruffalo’s Califano is the official they need to persuade, putting him directly across from Madeley’s Heumann in the teaser.
'CODA' filmmaker Siân Heder directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Rebekah Taussig, drawing from Heumann’s 2020 memoir, 'Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist.' The film brings Heumann’s account of the protest to the screen. Heder won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for 'CODA,' which was named Best Picture at the 2022 Oscars.
