The Tripod

Issue date: 11/29/05 Section: Arts

Media Credit: Emma Bayer One of the Jammers speaks.

Murderball won the audience award for best documentary at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and the film deserved it. Directors Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro followed the U.S. Wheelchair Rugby team for two years, from the 2002 Wheelchair Rugby World Championships in Sweden to the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece. The closeness that developed between the directors, the players, and their families is obvious throughout the film. The directors said in one interview that they filmed everything until asked to stop, which results in an intimate, personal portrait of each character.

Trinity students got a chance last Monday to see Murderball at Cinestudio and to meet the coach and several players from the Connecticut Jammers, a regional quad rugby team, after the movie. Coach Bud Harvey and players Jim Quick, Andrew Vilardo, and Tom Branchaud spoke about themselves and the game of quad rugby, also known as Murderball. (A game called Murderball is a little difficult to market, Zupan explains at a press conference before the Paralympics in the movie.)

After the movie, "these players spoke about how they got into the sport of quad rugby, how the sport works, and answered questions about the game.  Along the way, they cleared up many misconceptions that many people have about quadriplegics.  We were thrilled with the turnout and the questions that were asked by the audience.  From what I've heard, everyone seemed to gain a new perspective from the film and the speakers," said Haley Kimmet '08.

"The Murderball event was hosted by the Disability Awareness Theme Housing Quad, which we started as a means to integrate the Trinity College campus and the community surrounding it in addressing today's disability issues," continues Kimmet. Kimmet and roommates Aliza Trurekherman '08, Stephanie Keith '08, and Lauren Murray '08 "felt like the campus, while full of clubs and events dedicated to diversity and gender issues, was missing out on an entire portion of the population - those individuals with disabilities."

Murderball has a unique take on disability. None of the characters pretend that life as a quadriplegic is easy. Keith Cavill, recently injured in a dirt bike accident, arrives home from rehab, looks around his redesigned room, and proclaims to his well-meaning mother and girlfriend, "I'm in a wheelchair. This sucks."

Continued...

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