Independent Film Festival Boston 2009

Director George Kachadorian in attendance.

A project at a dance marathon yields some unexpected, transformative results for Boston photographer Courtney Bent. She finds her attention irresistibly drawn to a group of wheelchair-bound attendees––frequenters, it turns out, of Watertown's own United Cerebral Palsy Day Experience Program. Courtney’s natural, disquieting response to their disabilities inspires her to confront this demographic head-on: she schedules a visit to the center, intending to explore and capture a different way of life. But she quickly zeroes in on her own experiential handicap in translating the details of this unfamiliar world. Far better, she decides, to hand the camera off to the ones who know it best.

What follows is a life-affirming journey through a series of opening doors. Courtney learns much about her new friends: their unique challenges, of course, but likewise their interests, talents, histories, loves, and sorrows. Meanwhile, the budding photographers learn a new means of expressing themselves, of accessing the broader world and acquainting it with their lives. A growing collection of striking photos stitches the seams in this seven-year story—photographic portraits of individuals placed reverently within a cinematic portrait of a community.

Director George Kachadorian is a 2006 Emmy nominee for his televised documentary WALL STREET. In SHOOTING BEAUTY, he joins girlfriend (now wife) Courtney to tell a remarkable story with the simplest and most universal of themes: friendship and art.

- Sandra L. Frey