Life After - Director Reid Davenport & Producer Colleen Cassingham

Disabled film Director Reid Davenport (I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE) and Producer Colleen Cassingham trenchantly probes the legacy of Elizabeth Bouvia — a disabled California woman who, at the age of 26, sought “the right to die.” Her 1983 case provoked a national debate about the value of disabled lives, and Davenport sees echoes in chilling contemporary cases of disabled people dying prematurely — at their own hands and from a broken health care system. Through moving interviews and rich archival material, LIFE AFTER looks critically at where progressive values of bodily autonomy collide with the devaluing and fear of disabled lives. Director Reid Davenport & Producer Colleen Cassingham join us to talk about the wide-ranging and complex conversations taking place within the disability, medical communities and law-makers responsible for public policies that address a slew of complex considerations.

About the filmmaker - Reid Davenport (Director) makes documentaries about disability from an overtly political perspective. Reid’s first feature film, I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE, won the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the McBaine Bay Area Documentary Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

About the filmmaker - Colleen Cassingham (Producer) is a producer at Multitude Films focused on politically committed artful nonfiction. Most recently, she produced the IDA Awards-nominated shorts collection QUEER FUTURES, which premiered at CPH:DOX 2023 and is streaming on the Criterion Channel. Her past credits include Co-Producer on IT’S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL (Sundance 2023), and Associate Producer on PRAY AWAY (Tribeca 2020), CALL CENTER BLUES (SXSW 2020), ALWAYS IN SEASON (Sundance 2019), THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED (Tribeca 2018), and LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017).