When Billy Broke his Head
...and other tales of wonder
By Billy Golfus & David E. Simpson

When Billy Golfus, an award-winning radio journalist, became brain injured in a motor scooter accident, he became one of the forty-three million Americans with disabilities — the nation's largest and most invisible minority. But this video, as he says, "ain't exactly your inspirational cripple story." It's a documentary with attitude, which will entertain, enlighten, and even enrage its viewers.

Disability is not just a medical fact, it is also a political reality. In this irreverent, first person road movie, Billy meets disabled people around the country, and witnesses the strength and anger that have been forging a powerful disability rights movement in America.

This breakthrough film blends humor with politics, and individual experience with a chorus of voices, to explore what it is really like to live with a disability in America — where pervasive discrimination and bureaucracy too often keep people with disabilities trapped in a labyrinth of government rules and legislated poverty.

This is an entertaining program about disability, civil rights, and the search for intelligent life after brain damage. When Billy Broke His Head is a presentation of the Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

57 minutes
© 1994
Purchase $219 VHS / Purchase $219 DVD
Order No. QA-136
ISBN (VHS) 1-57295-136-2

Reviews
"A bold, eye-opening film." Gene Siskel, Film Critic

"The best video I have reviewed. Useful for any group wishing to learn more about adults with disabilities and their struggles for freedom and respect." Video Rating Guide

"An irreverently insightful film. Funny and shocking, but always down-to-earth." Variety

"This is the film that the disability community has been waiting for." Barry Corbet, New Mobility Magazine

Awards & Conference Screenings
Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance Film Festival
Silver Baton, DuPont-Columbia Journalism Award
Featured, DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival
Sage Award, American Academy of Cerebral Palsy
Emmy Award Nomination
Award Of Merit, Superfest
Best of Show, Paralympic Disability Festival
Juror's Choice, Black Maria Film and Video Festival
Best Documentary, Atlanta Film and Video Festival
Gold Apple, National Educational Media Network
Silver, New York EXPO of Short Film & Video
Silver Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival
Perspectives Exhibition, American Film Institute
Brooklyn International Disability Film Festival
...and many more

Related Films
When the Brain Goes Wrong: Portraits of individuals with brain dysfunctions including schizophrenia, manic depression, epilepsy, stroke, head injury, headaches and addiction. Physicians add information about causes and treatments.

Kiss My Wheels: Through an exhilarating season of training and competition, the members of a junior wheelchair basketball team deal with difficult issues, from gender conflicts to injury, illness, and thoughts of death.

Breathing Lessons: Academy Award winning portrait of poet and journalist Mark O'Brien, who contracted polio in childhood and spent much of his life in an iron lung.

Breakaway: This provocative documentary tells the story of the conflicted relationship between two men coping with the consequences of severe, traumatic brain injury.

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