The NFB is committed to respecting your privacy

We use cookies to ensure that our site works efficiently, as well as for advertising purposes.

If you do not wish to have your information used in this way, you can modify your browser settings before continuing your visit.

Learn more
Skip to content Accessibility

Persons with Disabilities (3)

  • Bearing Witness: Luke Melchior
    Bearing Witness: Luke Melchior
    Dan Curtis 2003 51 min
    This feature documentary is a portrait of Luke Melchior (1973-2021) who, at 26, had already lived longer than most people with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a progressive wasting of the muscles. Knowing his life would be relatively short had made Luke feel an urgency about making a lasting contribution. Living independently, with the help of 3 homecare workers, he ran a web-based business selling outdoor gear, and chaired the board of the Disability Resource Centre in Victoria, BC, where he was a passionate advocate for the rights of the disabled.

    Bearing Witness consists of 3 films, each approximately one hour long, on people with life-threatening illnesses. The series also profiles Jocelyn Morton, who died of liver cancer at 44, and Robert Coley-Donohue, who died of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) at age 74.
  • Everyone's Business
    Everyone's Business
    Mary Armstrong 1982 20 min
    The Churchill Park Greenhouse Cooperative in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, is a small produce business, much like any other trying to survive in a deteriorating economy. What makes it special is that eight out of the nine co-op members are disabled. Growing, washing, drying and packing vegetables, handling sales, bookkeeping, paying bills and sometimes postponing their own paycheques in order to see the co-op through hard financial times, these determined individuals are dynamic and self-sufficient members of society.
  • Eye Witness No. 11
    Eye Witness No. 11
    1949 11 min
    In this installment of the Eye Witness series, we look at classrooms on rails, circa 1949. We visit Ontario forests north of Lake Superior, where children come from miles away to attend school in a school car. They receive a month's worth of homework at a time, to keep them busy until the next time the classroom comes around. In Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, we see a unique workshop that trains the physically-challenged as furniture makers and seamstresses, allowing them to earn a living and build self-reliance.