Siân Heder’s Being Heumann to open Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto International Film Festival named Siân Heder’s Being Heumann its opening-night film, giving Judith Heumann’s disability-rights story the first slot at Roy Thomson Hall and a world-premiere launch on Sept. 10. The 51st edition, presented by Rogers, runs through Sept. 20.

The Apple Original Film is Heder’s first feature since CODA, the 2021 drama that won best picture at the 2022 Oscars. Ruth Madeley stars as Heumann, whose life runs through a central chapter of U.S. disability-rights history: born in 1947, Heumann lost the ability to walk at age 2 and later became known as the mother of the disability rights movement.

Her activism reached a national turning point in 1977, when she helped lead a 26-day takeover of a San Francisco federal building to force implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the anti-discrimination measure that laid important groundwork for the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2010, President Barack Obama named her the first Special Advisor on Disability Rights for the U.S. State Department, giving her advocacy an official platform in Washington.

Heumann died on March 4, 2023, but her profile widened for a new audience through Crip Camp, the 2020 documentary from James LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham that was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards.

Being Heumann was one of three world premieres in TIFF’s first lineup release, alongside Susanna White’s Prima Facie, starring Cynthia Erivo, and Hur Jin-ho’s The Assassin(s). Festival chief executive Cameron Bailey called the opening a thrill and Madeley’s performance electric.