‘Intelligent Lives’ tracks 3 adults with mental disabilities

Intelligent Lives, a documentary by Dan Habib, scheduled for release September 21.

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – Intelligent Lives, a documentary by Dan Habib about the high potential of people with mental disabilities, is scheduled for New York City release Sept. 21 and around the country thereafter.  Narrated by Chris Cooper, whose son Jesse had cerebral palsy and was recommended for institutionalization by misinformed doctors, the film stars three adult students who test low on the IQ scale but who have compensating strengths in other forms of intelligence.

One is Naieer Shaheed, who has trouble verbalizing but whose love of color and line shows up in brightly painted art.  Another is Naomie Monplaisir, a smiling young woman with Down’s Syndrome who has a hug and kind thoughts for everyone.  We watch her as she trains for a job as a cashier and wins the hearts of workers in a beauty salon.  And, from our own Jewish community, there is Micah Fialka Feldman, whom we meet studying at Syracuse University to be an educator.  Semi-independent, he is tentatively romancing Meghan, who also has developmental challenges, and whom he hopes will be someone who cares about him, wants to be with him, and perhaps someday live with him.

Cooper’s son, Jesse, died in 2005, but he brightened many lives when communicating through a computer and writing poetry.  Had the Coopers shut him away in an institution, as a doctor had recommended, so many people would have missed out on his positive impact.   In this documentary, we meet the siblings of Naomie, Naieer, and Micah, and we can see what caring people they have become, tolerant of others, knowing that a person’s strengths may not always be apparent on first glance.  Because he trembles and his body sometimes jerks, Naieer’s family worry that this sensitive African-American artist may someday be stopped by police, who will simply see him as a black man acting weird.  Meanwhile, Micah’s sister has become an elementary school teacher, and she is patient and loving toward a student with development disabilities in her class.  She knows what riches may lay beneath the exterior.

Director and producer Habib includes in this film a short history of American attitudes toward mental disabilities.  Early in the century, it was believed that a low score on an IQ test meant that someone was feeble-minded and likely to be a burden on society.  In the 1920’s, America saw the growth of the eugenics movement, in which people deemed to be mentally deficient were sterilized.  Adolf Hitler’s Germany, impressed by this heartless American practice, took it even farther.  He ordered the murder of people with mental disabilities; along with the Jews, they were among Nazism’s victims.

President John F. Kennedy grew up with a sister, Rosemary, who suffered from mental retardation.  As was the practice, she was institutionalized, but the Kennedy family did not forget her, or stop loving her.  In the 1960’s, Kennedy created a Presidential Committee on Mental Retardation, which found that some of the people warehoused in facilities for the mentally ill had been exploited and physically mistreated.  The President’s brother, U.S. Attorney General (and later U.S. Senator) Robert F. Kennedy inveighed against the practice of allowing institutionalized children to live in filth.  He criticized many institutions for the mentally impaired for lacking in attention, imagination, and manpower in their care for the mentally impaired.   Their sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was instrumental in creating the Special Olympics.

The film also saluted President George H. W. Bush who in 1990 signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), saying “Let this shameful wall of exclusion come tumbling down.”  The documentary noted that in 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court said that  ADA is the law of the land.

The families of Naaier, Naomie, an Micah—and indeed that of the late Jesse Cooper—speak eloquently in this documentary about the need for typically developing people to understand that while those with disabilities may act and appear differently, they nevertheless have much to offer our society.  Those who befriend them, and really get to know them, will be rewarded with that shared knowledge and appreciation.

*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com