NYC Education Department partners with film festival to educate students about disability and filmmaking

The city Department of Education announced in early March a “groundbreaking partnership” between the agency and ReelAbilities, a nonprofit film festival that promotes the awareness and celebration of people living with disabilities. This partnership will be an opportunity for the DOE and ReelAbilities to educate public school students about disabilities through the art of filmmaking.

“I see films as a great tool for education,” said Isaac Zablocki, ReelAbilities’ co-founder and CEO. “They make an impact and change how people see the world.”

Since its inception in 2007, the film festival’s mission has been to teach others about being disabled. ReelAbilities showcases a wide range of disabilities through documentaries, short films, animations and so on. Over the years, ReelAbilities has grown to include affiliate programs and online film screening of the films. In 2019, it began its education program that will now find its way into the classrooms of city public schools. It officially became a nonprofit organization in 2024. 

ReelAbilities began working towards a partnership with the DOE several months ago when Victor Edwards, Central Student Advocate and member of the New York City Public Schools Special Education Advisory Council, had the chance to attend the screen premiere of two ReelAbilities films. Edwards runs the Disability Pride and Disability Affinity Club network, which is under Inclusive Schools NYC. The club network aims to shift mindsets around disability culture and incorporates the perspectives of those with lived experiences related to disability. Word got to Edwards about ReelAbilities’ screening, and his experience attending the premiere left him astonished.

“I felt so at peace and so comfortable that I’d seen all the different representations of disability and culture,” Edwards told City & State. “It was just like a breath of fresh air. And I just know that we just had to partner with them, because we also align, because we continuously advocate and show the true representation when we do our things. We try and make sure that everyone is shown, and just showing that representation through film was just amazing.”

Soon after, Edwards and a colleague, DOE Director of Disability Culture & Communications Carson Chodos, met with Zablocki and his team to learn more about how ReelAbilities could educate students about disabled people. 

“The DOE was open to it, and for us, it was a new opportunity to use these films,” Zablocki said. “The films will be accessible for the teachers and students, and they come with lesson plans that include discussion guides.”

To start, 20 short films will be available for these lessons, and all will be grade-appropriate, from Kindergarten through 12th grade. 

This week saw both ReelAbilities’ annual film festival and DOE’s annual Inclusion Summit, in which Disability Pride took part. For Edwards and Chodos, having the two events in the same week reflected a new corner to turn when it comes to disability awareness and understanding.

“This is not just a special education project, right?” Chodos said. “This should be a mindset shift for everyone, and they shared and aligned with that same vision and value that learning more about communities with disabilities is for everyone to do, and it enriches the lives of everyone and all of our classrooms.”

According to Edwards, 450 students in various different grades registered for the summit. These students came from all over the city – even from District 75, which is for students with specialized challenges. And all of them got free tickets to ReelAbilities’ film festival. 

For both the DOE and ReelAbilities, this partnership seems to offer many possibilities.

“When we start looking at all these different things, and we start looking at the way society is, we don't see that true authentic representation,” Edwards said. “And now we're kind of coming together, and we're really building onto that, and we're really putting people, our students, at the forefront of making that true, authentic change.”