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“I wanted to be part of the world, but I didn’t see anyone like me in it,” says Jim LeBrecht in “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.” The Sundance winner tells the untold story of how a ramshackle summer camp for teenagers with disabilities, located just down the road from Woodstock, sparked a revolution. The powerful, lovingly made documentary is directed by LeBrecht, a sound mixer and Camp Jened alumna, and Emmy winner Nicole Newnham.
Founded in 1951 and shuttered after the summer of 1977, Jened is described as a “utopia” by one of the campers. Here, teenagers could be teenagers without all the stereotypes and the labels associated with having disabilities, they explain. The camp offered an environment where the teens could discuss how their parents often denied them the right of privacy and treated their siblings differently.
The doc, which features black and white footage taken during the camp’s run and recent interviews with the campers, also recalls how the alumni were able to explore romance and sexuality more freely at the camp than at home.
“Even when we were that young, we helped empower each other. It was allowing us to recognize that the status quo is not what it needed to be,” a Camp Jened alumna explains. Being at the camp showed the teens that their lives “could be better” — and they became radicalized.
We witness some of the Jened Campers grow up to be activists determined to change the world. We see them help organizing and participating in protests demanding federal regulations that will guarantee civil rights for the disabled.
The conversations campers had at Jened are so resonant now, even decades later. The disability rights movement has made the world a slightly more hospitable place for its former campers, but the doc makes it clear that there’s still a long, long way to go towards achieving a more equitable — and accessible — world, and stigma and stereotypes persist.
Newnham’s other credits include “The Revolutionary Optimists” and “Sentenced Home.” She co-directed the former with Maren Grainger-Monsen and the latter with David Grabias.
“Crip Camp” took home the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary at Sundance in January. Barack and Michelle Obama are among its exec producers.
“Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” is now available on Netflix.
