29 minutes / Color
Release: 2007
Copyright: 2006
For six years, actor and director Alison Peebles has been keeping a secret: she has multiple sclerosis. MS is an unpredictable but progressive disease of the brain and nervous system which is affecting her speech, mobility, and eyesight. Having watched her father die of the disease, she has even hidden the diagnosis from her mother and sister. Now, in the midst of working on the Scottish detective series, Taggart (carried by PBS), Alison finds that she can no longer hide her symptoms, and she's afraid that the revelation may destroy her career — will directors accept an actor with a limp, will the producer's insurance company continue to cover her? She also finds herself coping with the gradual erosion of some of the things that have made up her identity: she'll have to kiss goodbye to her sexy, high-heeled shoes.
Enlivened by Alison's mordant wit and by imaginative animation sequences based on her own sketches, this is a compelling portrait of a brave woman facing her uncertain future with humor and determination. "I believe very strongly that I should be allowed to work and live in this world as a person with a disability," she says. "I don't want to be seen as someone with MS. I want to be seen as Alison Peebles, who acts, directs…and sometimes falls over."
"The film is not maudlin or sentimental. It tackles the themes of keeping secrets, and society's reaction to disability, but focusing on a personal story in an engaging way. Multiple has a strong thread of humor running through it without being flippant. I thoroughly recommend it."—Inclusion Scotland
"Inspiring and moving…a powerful journey of discovery…will help people understand the varied and unpredictable nature of MS."—MS Society of the United Kingdom
"We see not an MS victim, but a beautiful, strong vibrant woman facing up to an uncertain future."—The Daily Mail
Select Accolades
Academy Award winning portrait of poet and journalist Mark O'Brien, who contracted polio in childhood and spent much of his life in an iron lung.
Jessica Yu | 1996 | 35 minutes | Color | English | English subtitles
It wasn't until Helene was 20 years old that her parents discovered that their autistic daughter was able to not only communicate, but to write deeply complex, philosophical and poetic work.
Julie Bertuccelli | 2017 | 85 minutes | Color | English; French | English subtitles
Documenting the least-known part of the civil rights movement, these are the first-person stories of people with developmental disabilities — labeled "mentally defective"— who were sent away to state institutions.
By Mark R. Lyons | 2007 | 42 minutes | Color | English
