‘Crip Camp’ captures birth of a movement
Film about a camp for disabled kids evolved into something bigger
As a respected East Bay sound mixer, Jim LeBrecht noticed that the projects he kept working on failed to tell the story of one segment of the population, the disabled. So the determined Oakland resident — who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair — took action and changed that. He invited Oakland director Nicole Newnham — an Emmy-winning documentary-maker he previously worked with — to lunch and tossed out the idea about making a documentary on Camp Jened, a liberating and influential “hippie” Catskills summer camp for disabled youths. LeBrecht, like others, cherished his experiences there in the ’70s, saying it was a place where young disabled people didn’t feel like a burden to others. “It wasn’t difficult for you to get from point A to point B and get your personal needs taken care of,” he says. “It’s rather liberating when you live in that. And you want that for your life out of camp.” Newnham was intrigued by the proposal, and thus was born the award-winning “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,” which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The Netflix documentary — executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama via their Higher Grounds production company — debuted on Netflix this week. “Camp” is as informative and entertaining as it is inspiring. The project changed over time and evolved into a much bigger story, broadening out to tell the brushed-aside story about the disability rights movement and how events at Camp Jened, Berkeley and San Francisco shaped it. “We knew there was a story about this camp in New York and this exodus to Berkeley and that there was probably a connection to the civil rights movement and the independent living movement,” LeBrecht said. Newnham and LeBrecht decided to co-direct the film, and spoke to academics, historians and those involved in the disability rights movement to weave a narrative thread that led from Camp Jened to Berkeley to San Francisco and on to Washington, D.C. The first part of the Rrated documentary immerses audiences into the camp’s freewheeling “age of Aquarius” experience, establishing a fly-on-thewall sense from footage shot by the People’s Video Theatre, a radical video coalition. It then branches out and follows LeBrecht and other campers, including Judy Heumann — who later emerged as a leading disabled rights activist and tenaciously led a 1977 San Francisco sit-in at the Office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare over a stalled piece of legislation that would grant the disabled more rights. That path leads to Berkeley where the Center for Independent Living on Telegraph Avenue — founded in the ’70s — provided resources and campaigned for creating better lives for the disabled. It became a magnet for former Camp Jened campers. “Berkeley was kind of a natural place because it was relatively small and I think the political attitude there is that movements happen here and people are open to embracing liberation,” LeBrecht said. “I think somebody said, if you weren’t part of a sitin during that time you didn’t earn your badge of honor in the Bay Area.” While “Crip Camp ” covers the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act signed into law in 1990, it also delves into more intimate, sometimes hilarious, remembrances about sex. That’s what earns it the R rating. One of the best stories comes from Oakland writer and former Jened camper Denise Jacobson who went on to get a master’s degree in human sexuality. She relates her experience with a bus driver and what resulted from that. Those refreshingly candid exchanges with Jacobson and her husband, Larry, came about since the interviewer was often LeBrecht, their friend. But amid the laughter there are touching moments as well as a realization that there is still more to strive for, including having more representation about the movement in school systems. Both directors point to Denise Jacobson’s observation in the film. She says: “You can pass a law, but until you change society’s attitudes that law won’t mean much.” LeBrecht hopes “Crip Camp” is an eye-opener and raises awareness of the need to protect and expand on disability rights. “I think there’s the perception in society that the ADA solved everything and it’s absolutely not the case,” he said. He points to a swath of issues that need to be addressed, including health care, transportation — particularly broken-down elevators — and better representation for the disabled among others. One of his greatest challenges is traveling by plane since he can’t use his wheelchair, rendering a trip to the bathroom impossible. “There’s a limit to what legislation can accomplish,” Newnham said. “We really hope the film, which tells only one slice of the disability rights movement and from one vantage point, can be a bit of an on-ramp to more stories and more storytelling so that attitudes can shift.” “I think that’s one thing we’ve noticed from audiences of the film,” LeBrecht adds, “that they’re just sort of realizing that that’s a place where cultural attitudes need to change. “