Ruth Madeley is brilliant in a rousing disability rights tale, and Ron Howard’s scintillating ode to one of the greatest photographers of all time
Judith Heumann may not be a household name in the UK, but in the US she has been called the “mother of the disability rights movement”. In Sian Heder’s energising fact-based drama, she’s portrayed (brilliantly) by our own Ruth Madeley as a complex woman – inspiring but dominating, passionate yet at times difficult to deal with. The film focuses on her leadership of a coalition of the rejected – wheelchair users, blind and deaf activists – who occupied a federal building in San Francisco in 1977 to protest the failure to sign regulations that would ban state discrimination against disabled people. A rousing tale that’s careful to show that the fight for equality is still far from a done deal.
Friday 13 November, Apple TV