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♪hey can'read my nd oall my face♪ ♪ none know i'd ther spe my days♪ ♪lone on pillow ♪ don't care wh they say ♪ ie been wting r so long ♪ cl me by nam ♪ ty keepelling me i'wrong ♪ we arnot the me ♪ del toro: stayp to dat onamerica framed at worldchannel.or subscribe to world channel's youtube

to go beyond the lens with our filmmakers. tell us what you think using #americareframed. ♪ ♪ (frantic violin music) - [rodney] i think i always make films about the things that are the scariest things for me to deal with. (frantic violin music) (tranquil music)

my name is rodney evans and i am the writer, director, producerand co-edito of vision portraits. i have a condition that's called retinitis pigmentosa that leaves me with very minimal peripheral vision and minimal night vision. there! and then there. and then there. like a horse with blinders. i think i'm trying to figure out what it means to work as a filmmaker, whe vision seems so central. you know, knowing that mine will eventually go away. (contemplative music) vision portraits chronicles the creative process of blind and low-vision artists. there's a dancer, kayla hamilton.

there's a photographer, john dugdale. a writer, ryan nightin. and myself, as a low-vision filmmaker. (calm music) the film was really a confrontation th my own fear of vision loss and grappling with what would happen if my vision deteriorated. a lot of my films are deeply personal, and deal with confronting fear and trauma in my own life and things that have been deeply unsettling to me and really wanting to grapple with those feelings in the process of making the film d hopefully coming out on the otr side of e process more knowledgeable and more empowered.

(film rolling) i mean, who knows, right? maybe blindness is like the reversal of being a baby. and you're entering this new space with all that you know and all that you've seen inside of you. so i'm a filmmaker that has worked in experimental documentary and fiction, and so i think it's hard to kind of pin what i do down to one specific style. i think i tend to be interested in the experiences of people of color and specifically queer people of color. i was inspired by a void in representation, in terms of my experience as an lgbtq+

african american man. (clapping) you kn, i just felt like tt represention didn't ist when i was in college and when i was coming of age. (crowd chattering) 25% of people in america identify as having a disability, yet less than 2% of characters in film and television are represented as having a disability. i think about that void between the actual lived experience of people across the country and then what gets reflected in film and tv as quote unquote "reality". (calm music) how does the lack of representation of disabled characters reinforce a kind of shame and a kind of stigma

that those stories are things that shouldn't be seen? that should be hidden. that aren't worthy or valuable of being told. it's important for, a for those stories to be told and b for those stories to be told by people with disabilities that understand that exrience from the inside. - [man] i realize blindness is a point of view on the world, it's not something i should avoid, it's something i should look from. - [rodney] i also just want people to really look at these thriving, amazing, captivating artists and their work. there's so many reasons to not do something and here are, you know, the four of us making work

in spite of obvious challenges and continuing to do it, (peaceful sic) we're also moving and changing ang with our vision in that being blind or having low vision doesn't necessarily equate not being able to produce art as a creative person. (elegant music) - [kayla] my best dancing is when my eyes are closed. ♪ when i was two, my family and i moved to the u.s. in order to get me eye treatment for a condition called retinoblastoma, which is basically an eye tumor. i immediately met a woman who was blind and had a guide dog, and she showed me and my family

that it would be possible for me to lead a normal life as a blind person. guide dogs became a symbol of freedom and independence, and it was something that i desperately wanted for myself. unfortunately, you can't get a guide dog when you're five, and for me, at five years old, 18 seemed like a million years away. but i didn't only like guide dogs, i loved all dogs, no matter the breed or the size, i loved them all. so since i cldn't have a guide dog, i thought maybe i could get a pet dog. but myamily said no, because we lived in an apartment, and we didn't have a yard, and i was very young. so a few years later, when we moved into our house, my begging for a dog became relentless. and my parents, running out of excuses, gave in. i find myself at an animal shelter in the dog room,

listening to all these dogs barking and whining, and i just can't wait, i want to pet them all. so i stick my fingers through the wires of the kennel, and i feel this fluffy, medium-sized dog that i'm later told is a golden retriever puppy. we ask one of the women working at the shelter if we can spend some time with this puppy in one of the visiting rooms, but instead of bringing me that puppy, she brings me a different puppy, a black lab-chow mix who is even smaller and fluffier than the golden retriever and has the cutest floppy ears and the tiniest bark, and i immediately fall in love. we bring her home, and we name her rosie, and rosie and i have lots of great times together. i think she thought of me as her annoying little sister, because i was constantly picking her up and kissing her and petting her and not giving her any personal space.

(laughter) we also had some unique experiences that came with me being blind and having a dog. for example, when i tried walking rosie, i really wanted to do it by myself, so i tried using my cane. and i had the cane in one hand and rosie's leash in the other hand, and rosie would get scared of the cane, and the cane and the leash would get tangled, and it was just an awkward experience. (laughter) on the plus side, i didn't have to pick up after her when she went to the bathroom in the backyard. (laughter) because i couldn't find it, so... that worked out pretty well for me. but as much as i loved rosie, as i started getting older, i still really wanted a guide dog. and when my classmates in high school talked about getting their driver's license, i thought about getting my dog. so i filled out all this paperwork that asked me questions about my lifestyle and what activities i liked to do, and i had a practice walk with a trainer, so he could gauge my pace.

and i was finally at the day where i was getting my dog. i was so anxious, i couldn't s still, so when i hear the trainer pull into the driveway, i leave rosie inside, and i go outside to greet my dog. this very dog came out of the van and greeted me. she was wagging her tail and panting, and i petted her long fur, and we were so happy to meet each other. the trainer gave me the leash, and we started our training. but, as expected, it was a little hard for rosie to adjust to having this new dog in her life, because they were very different dogs. rosie was always down for taking a nap and watching tv. quest really lives up to her name, and is always ready for a new adventure. unfortunately, rosie just passed away last week. and it's been really hard for me because i think about her

every time i pass her favorite spots where she would curl up, or when i come across her favorite treats in the pantry. reflecting on what these two dogs have meant to me, i realized that wanted a guide dog so i could have freedom. but rosie gave me the freedom to be a kid. we laughed and played together, and she was such a great comfort to me when i struggled to make friends in high school. quest has given me all this freedom and independence that i had hoped for and is literally helping me navigate my adult life. i realized that these very different dogs were just the right dogs for me at just the right time in my life. thank you. (cheers and applause)