Screening:
Opening Night
April 27, 7:30 PM
The Senator Theatre

Dirs: Susan Hannah Hadary and Bill Whiteford
Country, Year, Length, Format: U.S., 1999, 46 min., 16mm
Presented by: Susan Hadary, Bill Whiteford, Dan Keplinger

For 14 years, filmmakers Susan Hannah Hadary and Bill Whiteford followed Dan Keplinger around with a camera. When they started, he was a 13-year-old boy in a Boy Scout uniform who had no control over his muscles; he could not speak or dress himself. The other kids in the neighborhood called him "King Gimp."

Dan was fighting with Cerebral Palsy, and he was one of 6 children Susan and Bill chose to document in a film about mainstreaming children with disabilities. The film was completed in 1986, aired on Maryland Public Television, and is still used as a training film.

But when the project was over, the filmmakers could not take their eyes or their camera off Dan Keplinger. He wanted to be more than mainstreamed, he wanted to be an artist, and he wouldn't stop trying. His mother, a consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics, thought he could become independent, if he wouldn't quit learning. Bill and Susan had no budget to continue filming Dan, but they would not quit either.

Dan wrote the script for King Gimp, typing with a head-stick attached to a helmet. 80 pages, painstakingly typed and retyped that have been edited into a script. The 40-minute film has been edited from 80 hours of film shot over 14 years. It documents an extraordinary effort by a lot people-Dan and the filmmakers certainly, but also his mother, his tutor, and art teachers like Stuart Stein at Towson University.

Dan Keplinger's paintings are in Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York. On March 26, 2000, Bill and Susan won an Academy Award for their film. At the Vanity Fair party, Kevin Spacey made Oscar dance on Dan's lap. -Jed Dietz

Tidbit:
"My thoughts race to my mind, slowed to a near standstill when I begin to talk. Maybe I am brilliant. For sure I am an oxymoron…. When I paint, there is a sweet siren voice telling me where the brush will move…The brush became a force." -Dan Keplinger

Bios:
Susan Hannah Hadary and William A. Whiteford Twenty years as filmmaking partners ("no skill is duplicated between us"), Bill and Susan base their Video Press Production Company at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. They have made scores of films documenting people struggling with various medical challenges such as Alzheimer's, cerebral palsy, and schizophrenia. The have won 6 regional Emmys, 10 Golden Eagle Awards, and a CableAce Award for Bong and Donnell, which was also nominated for 2 national Emmys.

Bill, a native of Baltimore, holds a degree in filmmaking from the University of Maryland. He contributes producing, directing, cinematography and editing to their productions. Susan, a native of Chicago, has a BA from Bennington College and an MA from Catholic University. She contributes producing and writing to their movies.

Short:
A Whole New Day
dir. William Garcia, U.S., 1999, 19 min., 35mm,
Cast: James Gandolfini, Kathrine Narducci, Ned Eisenberg, Delilah Cotto
Print Source: Riverhead Entertainment, 152 W. 30th St. #600, New York, NY 10001; ph: 212.279.1917, fax: 212.279.1937, email: w8088@aol.com

Synopsis:
Bukowski meets Stanley Kowalski in the form of James Gandolfini's portrait of Vincent, a blue-collar family man with a drinking problem. A Whole New Day spends the "morning after" with Vincent as he awakens, with a wicked hangover, to an empty apartment. His wife Carol (Kathrine Narducci), it seems, has emptied the apartment, and taken her 3 kids with her.