The kids look into the camera and tell you how hard it is for someone with autism to make friends — how the other kids’ teasing hurts.
They talk about living in a world bombarding them with information they cannot possibly filter fast enough because their minds just don’t work that way.
But most of all, they talk about us. The so-called normal people. The people who scare them.
It’s a 10-minute film called “Normal People Scare Me,” made by Taylor Bowers, an autistic 15-year-old freshman at Newbury Park High School. He spent the past two months interviewing other autistic kids, ages 9 to 19, asking what’s on their minds and what they see when they look out at the world.
It’s one of 25 short films being shown this month at a student film festival at Chaminade High School in West Hills.
A few people who have seen an early version of Taylor’s film say it’s powerfully moving and brutally honest. A remarkable achievement from a young man who was basically written off as a baby as having no real future.
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~21377~2054450,00.html
Re: "Normal People Scare Me"
Especially since when you consider that, at one time, the only futures people with autism had was lifelong incarceration in mental institutions—they were regardless as hopeless, even less than human.
Kathy G.
Re: "Normal People Scare Me"
The e-mails and letters come in from as far away as Mexico City and Canada, from parents with autistic children wanting to know how they can get a copy of the 10-minute film Taylor Cross has made on what it’s like to be autistic.
They ask — plead, really — for a chance to buy the film, hoping it may hold the keys to a breakthrough with their own autistic kids.
As I wrote last week, Taylor, a 15-year-old freshman at Newbury Park High School, who doctors said would probably never walk or talk, interviewed a few dozen other autistic kids, 9 to 19, to have them verbalize what it is they see and feel when they look out at the world.
The film is called “Normal People Scare Me,” and it’s touched a nerve.
From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. April 24, it will be one of 25 local student films being shown for the first time at a student film festival at Chaminade High School in West Hills.
But it’s a long way to West Hills for a movie when you live in Mexico City, Alberta, Canada, or the dozens of states across this country from which I’ve received e-mails and letters since the column ran last Thursday.
“The response has been overwhelming, and we’re looking into the duplication costs to see how to make it available to everyone who wants to see it,” said Keri Bowers, Taylor’s mother.
Distribution and the cost of a tape of Taylor’s 10-minute film,
along with a longer 45-minute version being put together with the help of Joey Travolta, are still being worked out.
The older brother of actor John Travolta owns Entertainment
Experience in Woodland Hills, which offers filmmaking and acting classes for special-needs children.
To reserve copies of Taylor’s film when it’s available, call
Pause4kids at (805) 497-9596, or Travolta’s Entertainment Experience company at (818) 591-3345.
The 10-minute version of Taylor’s film also will be shown by the
Ventura County Autism Society at 7 p.m. May 14 at the society’s
Camarillo office, 639 E. Los Posas Road, Building E, Suite 121. For reservations, call (818) 207-0135.
Re: "Normal People Scare Me"
The copies of this film will be ready to ship in about 2 months. The proceeds from the sale of this will be used to help fund Pause4kids work with autistic children. The cost will depend upon how many copies are needed to fill the reservations.
No human being should EVER be written off as “hopeless”. No one knows what potential discoveries may occur from each day to the next. There is always “hope”. It is wonderfully refreshing that this talented young man, who is autistic, had the opportunity to make this film, and that it is receiving press and an audience.