Best Documentary

The Best Documentary Award celebrates documentary filmmaking that elevates disability voices, shares lived experiences, and expands understanding through powerful storytelling.

The Haunting of Pennhurst 

Credits: 

• Directors/Producers: Mike Attie, Katarina Poljak, Nathan R. Stenberg
• Producer: Daniel J. Chalfen

Synopsis: 

An institution for disabled people, notorious for decades of abuse, was finally shuttered in 1987—only to reopen 30 years later as a haunted house attraction. Here, disabled actors become “haunters,” navigating the shadowy corridors where performance and reality bleed together over one season at the Pennhurst Asylum.

The Ride Ahead

Credits: 

• Director/Producer: Dan Habib
• Director: Samuel Habib

Synopsis: 

Samuel Habib‘s goals are pretty typical for a 21-year-old. Moving out of his family’s home. Earning a degree. A career. Dating. Sex. Yet every rite of passage is fraught with challenges. Seizures and uncontrollable movements. Friends' homes inaccessible to his 350-pound wheelchair. Degrading ableist encounters. “I want to figure out how to follow my dreams,” he says. “But no one tells you how to be an adult, let alone an adult with a disability.” He’s determined to avoid the statistical realities for many disabled adults: unemployment, isolation, institutionalization. Can a community of disability activist rebels help him follow his dreams?

You Look Fine

Credits: 

• Director/Producer: J. Snow

Synopsis: 

When the pain hits, most people shut down. J. Snow grabs a camera. "You Look Fine" is an unflinching, unexpectedly funny documentary that follows comedian, writer, and filmmaker J. Snow as he navigates the agonizing ups and downs of sickle cell anemia. Through self-shot footage from emergency rooms, stand-up stages, and everywhere in between, the film peels back the curtain on a life lived in constant negotiation with pain, medical bias, and an unforgiving system.