Film about blind students opens eyes

Austin (KXAN) - Filmmaker Keith Maitland was at a cocktail party, chatting with an employee of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The employee was sharing remarkable tales about the students at the school and the lives they lead. Curious and eager for more, Maitland paid the school a visit and met some of the students. It was the first time he had ever met a blind person and the experience enabled him to "see" the visually impaired for the first time.

Maitland and his crew spent more than 120 days over the span of the 2005-2006 school year, following four of the students not only on campus, but to their homes, as well.

Early on in the film, the stories begin to cascade through an unsuspecting landscape.

"My grandpa took me to the eye doctor," said Isaac, a student at the Bllind School said. "The doctor said, 'He needs to get to Dallas right now because his retina is detaching.'

Sitting at a table with Isaac, his grandfather picks up the story: "They came out and told us, said well, we do nothing because the hospital won't accept him unless you've got the money to pay."

"We come back home and the next morning, I woke up and I was blind," said Isaac.

"I went to sleep with sight and I woke up and it was like I couldn't see," said Chas, another student.

"I don't really remember the last thing I saw, or person," said Meagan, the third featured student. "I wish I could but I can't."

And Denise, the fourth student in the film, says: "I tried to get in a play once. They told me, 'You're blind, you can't see. How are you going to be in a play?' It hurt my feelings; it just upset me, so when I got down here and I heard there was a play, I was like, 'Oh, I want to try out for that."

"The kids that we worked with, you know, at various points on the spectrum, kind of all decided to trust us and to trust themselves," Maitland said. "You know, I set out to make a film about blind teenagers and what we ended up with is a film about teenagers who happen to be blind.

Each of the students charts his or her own course through the year and through film. Some do well, others not so much. When the final credits roll, however, there is a sense of satisfaction, an inkling of having been privileged to get so close to four young people, searching for their own identies in a world they can no longer see.

The Eyes of Me is the headline documentary film for the 2009 International Disability Film Festival. It screens at 6:30 Saturday night, November 7 at the Alamo Drafthouse Theatre on South Lamar Boulevard. Maitland and the stars of the film will participate in a panel discussion after the screening.

Then next year, The Eyes of Me will join two other Austin made films, Sunshine by Karen Skloss and The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson, in nationwide distribution on PBS. The films will be part of public televisions Independent Lens documentary series.