I think it’s very frightening to have an autistic child. This particular generation of parents in my movie grew up in the fifties and sixties when most moms stayed home with the kids and most dads worked. That was the norm. So in a place of fear we revert to what is the most familiar … It may be different for future generations.
Q: What surprised you about the kids?
A: For me, autism is so fascinating, the varying levels of functionality. Elaine [director of the Miracle Project in the film] says it’s like swiss cheese: these weird holes of low function and these places of super high function. One character in the film, Lexi, has a hard time putting an original sentence together and yet she’s driving home with her mom one day, and they’d just spent time with her friend’s family … and she says, “And then there’s Bradley. Bradley is the dadly!” This was an overly original, really funny thing to say, with amazing delivery! Where does this come from? That’s the thing that is endlessly perplexing … inside all these kids, there’s an incredibly high functioning human being … It’s particularly challenging for the parents who have a real need to know their children …
Q: How did you get your start in filmmaking?
A: Growing up, I never thought of being a filmmaker as a possibility in my wildest dreams. I grew up in the 70s. There were not women filmmakers and being from Canarsie, Brooklyn, I had never met a filmmaker … I was going to be a lawyer … but my last semester in college, I took a still photography class. Now I’d been begging my parents for a camera since I was five years old! I was fascinated with photography. I wanted a Mickey Mouse camera! My mother kept buying me drawing supplies … I’d say “I want to take pictures!” So, whenever I could, I’d grab the family camera …
Later, I spent days in the darkroom … I got into a graduate program at NYU that was a joint program with the International Center of Photography … Later, I reached a level in my photography when I didn’t want to go further. It wasn’t enough for me. I took a video class … suddenly it was movement, sound, words, music, and story ... Based on my work, I was offered a fellowship in a TV studio at NYU. That’s where I learned the physicality of production … but I was never really taught how to make documentary films.
