UNIVERAL DESIGN BOILED DOWN TO THE BASICS

 PROUD TO SHARE MY PASSION FOR INCLUSION

ON THE MOBILITY MATTERS PODCAST

One in four people has disability.

Designing for all is good business.

Universal Design is the most durable, sustainable, flexible and cost-efficient way of creating the built environment.

Proud to share my expertise, learned from global travel and consulting, on the Mobility Matters podcast hosted by Javier Betancourt, Director of the Miami-Dade County CITT.

Here's a link to my latest passionate discussion of Universal Design and a better built environment for People with Disabilities.

https://fb.watch/nuy8PxasyD

BEHIND THE LENS

WHEELCHAIR USERS TELL THEIR STORIES

IN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES 

Kelsey Peterson’s film happened so organically that, looking back, she wouldn’t do much of anything differently.

“My story is about self-discovery. It’s a wild thing to discover that while you’re in a wheelchair, you still have internalized ableism from our culture,” she says.

“I love my body,” she adds. 

“I don’t need to be fixed. But I’m really interested in possible recovery and if it could give me different kinds of pleasure or give me more time.”

 

 

BEHIND THE LENS

WHEELCHAIR USERS TELL THEIR STORIES

IN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES

Kelsey Peterson advises would-be documentarians in the disability community to “be brave” and reach out to experts in production, funding and broadcasting. 

She suggests working with grant writers, or at least finding multiple good editors to review grant applications and deliver quality feedback. 

“Fundraising is challenging enough as it is, and you don’t want to put in all this effort and wish that you could’ve done more, or feel like you wasted your time,” she says.

BEHIND THE LENS

WHEELCHAIR USERS TELL THEIR STORIES

IN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES

“The artist in me came out in documentary form, and it felt like a reblooming of myself.

I could feel it in post-production and the editing room.

This beautiful unraveling. Being able to translate myself.”

Listening to Kelsey Peterson discuss the filmmaking process, it’s clear the experience had a profound effect on her. 

“When I started, I wasn’t even comfortable with the word ‘disability,’ or claiming it,” she says.

“I learned the importance of storytelling for your own personal growth.”

 

BEHIND THE LENS

WHEELCHAIR USERS TELL THEIR STORIES

IN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES 

The team applied to an open call for documentary submissions from nonprofit Independent Television Services and received $350,000 in funding plus a pipeline to PBS. 

ITVS funds and presents documentaries on public television, new media projects on the internet, and the weekly Independent Lens on PBS.

Kelsey Peterson said the support from ITVS turned her project from a personal endeavor to a high-caliber film.

Filming the documentary helped Kelsey Peterson rediscover the internal artist and storyteller she had lost post-SCI. 

She was a successful dancer prior to her injury and loved expressing herself through dance.

She says her “internalized ableism” made it difficult for her to see herself as a dancer after her injury.

BEHIND THE LENS

WHEELCHAIR USERS TELL THEIR STORIES

IN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES

“I had no intention of making this film. 

I filmed some of it, then saw the footage wasn’t good enough and realized that I needed production professionals to tell the story,” Kelsey Peterson says. 

After a rotating series of assistant filmmakers and do-it-yourself filming funded by Kickstarter contributions, she eventually brought on award-winning co-director/producer Daniel Klein. 

She credits Klein for creating a “container of trust” that allowed her to be her vulnerable, truest self.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEHIND THE LENS

WHEELCHAIR USERS TELL THEIR STORIES

IN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES

Kelsey Peterson’s full-length documentary, Move Me, provides a candid look at a number of raw subjects: 

her father’s terminal illness, his struggles with her C6 spinal cord injury, her research into invasive but possibly life-enhancing medical procedures, and her choreographing and performing in a dance project for the stage.

Through sweat, tears and a lot of earthy language, the film moves between all of these topics while also exploring Peterson’s evolving relationship with her own disability. 

Since being released in fall 2022, the film has played at eight film festivals and aired as part of PBS’ prestigious Independent Lens series. 

These are heady accomplishments for a first-time co-director, and even more so when you consider how different the final product is from what Peterson started in 2017.