Page 36 - Peter Farrelly Issue

"Daruma" - Toby Forrest and John Lawson
paraplegic. Lawson, a double-hand amputee, was their choice to play the role of Patrick’s grouchy neighbor and friend, “Robert”, a character who shares the same disability as Lawson. Daruma brings to life the story of these two unlikely friends, who set out on a cross-coun- try road trip to reunite Patrick’s 4-year-old daughter, Camilla, with her maternal grandparents.
Lawson said, “Watching it with everybody was great. When you’re filming, it’s hard to predict if the audience is going to laugh because some of its dark humor. At the screening, they laughed at all of the right times, and they all cried at the right time, too.”
With many roadblocks along the production path, “Daruma” was shot over the course of 15 days during the pandemic. McNeil is understandably thrilled with the current version of the film and its recent reception at Dances with Films film festival.
Lawson was particularly interested to see if a particular line of his would land with laughter as intended. He explained that there’s a scene where Patrick’s in the wheelchair trying to lean in and secure a new car seat. As he struggles to reach it, Robert leans in and says, ‘Hey, you need a hand?’ John was relieved when he heard the audience laugh enthusiastically. “We weren’t sure how everybody would take that joke, but every- body laughed. And that was what we hoped.”
“We had a sold-out screening, and we really tried so hard to make that screening as accessible as possible for as many people across the disability spectrum as possi- ble. In the end, I believe we had about 30 wheelchair- users in attendance. We worked with the theater pro- grammers who knew how important this was, and we made space for everybody. We also had open captions for our deaf audience members, and we had audio visual descriptions provided to us free of charge by Audio Eyes,” McNeil said.
Forrest is among those grateful for the steadfast leader- ship of McNeil and Yellen during the film’s long road.
The screening also gave the cast and crew an opportuni- ty to experience their film in front of a live audience. John
About six years ago, the writer and director duo com- pleted Daruma’s proof of concept film, which is the vehicle typically used to garner interest from studios and distribution companies to secure funding.
36 ABILITY
“Even though there were hurdles along the way filming Daruma, Kelli and Alex just went around the hurdle. That was so great. We didn’t even go over them. We just went around the hurdles,” Forrest said.