The Horse Boy at the San Diego Public Library

Rowan holds hands with his father on a ride in The Horse Boy.

Producing Partners are local community organizations that co-present free Community Cinema screenings across the country. Here are a few snippets from a recent event for The Horse Boy by Michel Orion Scott. Our producing partners at the San Diego Public Library shared these highlights from their event.

This screening turned out differently from all the previous Community Cinema screenings. Not only did many new attendees show up, the film also attracted several audience members with autism spectrum disorders. There was a mother and her young son who were attending a library film screening for the first time. A visitor from Holland, who travels to San Diego every spring and regularly attends library screenings when she’s in town, revealed a history of autism in her family. An older mother with Asperger’s Syndrome has a son in Montana taking part in a horse and autism therapy center similar to the one founded in West Texas by the Isaacsons at the end of the movie.

She had read the book before and was thrilled to see the movie. She also saw parallels the ‘big sky country’ of Montana and Mongolia. The audience was moved by the Isaacsons’ literal journey to Mongolia and back as well by the family’s emotional journey from confusion and anger to acceptance. Many people expressed positive feelings about the film, one person mentioned to library staff that The Horse Boy was “the best film library has screened in the ITVS series”. Interestingly, the audience was younger than usual and included three Mongolian students from UC San Diego.

Tags: autism, san diego, the horse boy

Garbage Dreams Events Make People Look At Garbage Differently: San Diego

In sunny San Diego, California at the  San Diego Public Library, Garbage Dreams was the best screening of the season according to our partners at the library.  It was the biggest audience so far, and we had an excellent speaker follow the film who kept more than half the audience in their seats for Q&A. The film presented a wonderful opportunity to discuss grassroots activism and how to mobilize now on recycling issues in San Diego.  We had press coverage from the the San Diego Reader.

Michael Wonsidler, who works for both the local county waste department and Zero Waste San Diego a local grassroots group that advocates for increased recycling awareness and better alternatives to current recycling practices, spoke following the film.  His combined knowledge of government action and grassroots perspective made him the perfect speaker to engage the audience in meaningful discussion about the issues presented in Garbage Dreams. The audience truly benefited from discussing the film afterward with an expert in the recycling field right here in San Diego where we may not quite have garbage dreams, but we’re certainly dreaming about recycling more and more.

Tags: California, garbage dreams, recycling, san diego