DIFFERENT FROM WHAT? FILM FESTIVAL

Mission
Why host a film festival on difference and dis/ability? The answer seemed simple: to engage the greater community in tough conversations about how our culture and community view disabilities and people who have them by bringing them together across a shared interest: FILM. Now, the discussion has become much more than this. It is about the people involved--filmmakers, panelists, organizers, sponsors, and the underlying support from so many others. It is about the unique stories and lenses through which they reflect on and acknowledge difference. It begins a conversation about moving past old ways of thinking about abilities, gifts, and talents. And it begins a new chapter in the story Arizona will tell about its place in transforming the lives of people "with disabilities".

The goal of this film festival is to challenge filmmakers and film festival goers alike to take a critical look at how the images of dis/ability and difference we construct both pull from and influence how we view and approach our everyday lives. Through panel discussions, film talkbacks, and an interactive Twitter dialog that takes place throughout the festival, we hope to start a conversation that builds and sustains community interest as we continue this Festival in the future.

History
During Spring of 2009, a small group of graduate students and faculty from the Equity Alliance at Arizona State University developed an idea for expanding their existing educational equity and civil rights work. Grounded in the group’s collective history of supporting educational systems’ creation of inclusive environments where the strengths of all within them are recognized, valued, and built upon, the group engaged on a journey to create a film festival that would question the very way that disability is defined. While the DFW production team members bring their experience as directors and personnel with the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems, the National Institute for Urban School Improvement, both funded by the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, and a Regional Equity Assistance Center for Arizona, California, and Nevada, their work as artists, musicians, film makers and film lovers positioned them as the right team for the job of bringing together a collection of films to engage audiences in the same critical questioning of who and what is different, that they have been engaging with educational systems for many years.

Who We Are

JoEtta Gonzales
Dr. JoEtta Gonzales serves as the Director of the Equity Alliance at ASU, bringing over 20 years of educational experience to our program. She has held numerous positions of leadership within schools, introducing significant changes in terms of curriculum development, professional learning, and administrative reform. She has held school and district level leadership positions in urban, suburban, and rural school districts throughout Arizona. JoEtta is most proud of her accomplishments as an elementary school principal in helping her school community embrace culturally responsive practices. By engaging teachers in personal reflection and courageous conversations about race, identity and poverty, the school team was able to re-examine practices and develop policies that embraced inclusive, learner-centered approaches. In so doing, the school broadened its view of leadership, extending it to teachers, students, and parents, and as a result the school relentlessly pursued the goal of raising achievement for all children. In addition to her position at the Equity Alliance at ASU, JoEtta teaches a course in multicultural exceptionalities at Arizona State University.

Elizabeth Kozleski
Dr. Elizabeth B. Kozleski is a Professor at Arizona State University in the College of Education and holds the UNESCO Chair for International Inclusive Education Research. Her expertise is in the area of systems change, inclusive education, and professional development in urban education. Her research interests include teacher learning in urban education, multicultural educational practices in the classroom and the impact of professional development schools on student and teacher learning. She was a public school special education teacher for seven years before earning her doctoral degree from the University of Northern Colorado. Currently, she is a co-Principal Investigator (PI) for the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems, the National Institute for Urban School Improvement and NIUSI Leadscape. Dr. Kozleski’s expertise in teacher education and urban education support her work with the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), the Teacher Education Division (TED), the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE), Harvard’s Civil Rights Project, the Colorado Partnership for Educational Renewal, the National Center for Educational Outcomes (NCEO), the American Institutes for Research, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and the Minnesota and Delaware Departments of Education, among others. Dr. Kozleski’s research and personnel preparation efforts have been funded by the U. S. Department of Education (OSEP), the National Education Association, and the Colorado Department of Education. Dr. Kozleski has presented her work at scientific conferences in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Dr. Kozleski has received awards for teaching, service and research at UCD.

RaLynn McGuire
RaLynn McGuire works as a disability access consultant in the Disability Resource Center at Arizona State University. She enjoys working with students with disabilities to ensure they are receiving the necessary accommodations in order to compete on a post-secondary level. She also serves as a resource for the ASU and greater Phoenix community with regard to various forms of assistive technology and provides consults and training.. RaLynn graduated from Arizona State with her bachelors in special education. She taught in an elementary school setting as a special education teacher for several years while pursuing her masters degree through the University of Arizona in Teaching the Visually Impaired.

Elaine Mulligan
Elaine Mulligan has is the Assistant Director of the Leadscape project. She coordinates project timelines, data collection, and product development, in addition to providing coaching and supervision. Elaine has had extensive experience as a classroom teacher, has served as an education coordinator for a private residential treatment facility, and has worked directly with adolescents in residential treatment. She has also worked in a variety of different cultural environments including student teaching in Portslade, England; working as an itinerant teacher in the Peace Corps in St. Lucia, West Indies; and teaching resource students on the Gila River Pima-Maricopa Reservation in Bapchule, Arizona. Elaine recently completed her Master of Arts in Special Education at Arizona State University, focusing on Multicultural Exceptionalities.

Katie Sprouls
Katie Sprouls is a doctoral student in special education with a concentration in emotional and behavioral disorders at Arizona State University. Ms. Sprouls is a school psychologist and works with the Arizona Department of Education as a member of the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) and Response to Intervention (RTI) state leadership team. Her research interests involve enriching student learning by implementing culturally responsive practices in PBIS. Ms. Sprouls has experience coordinating national and statewide conferences. In addition to her professional goals, Ms. Sprouls is a yoga instructor and owner of a contracting company that provides special education
related services throughout Arizona.

Kathleen King Thorius
Kathleen King Thorius is a Special Education doctoral fellow at Arizona State University (ASU) in a program to prepare culturally responsive special education professors. She received her Master of Education Degree and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in School Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB). While at UMB, Ms. King worked as site supervisor at a Boston high school for the Admissions Guaranteed Program. This program was funded through the federal TRIO grant and aimed at increasing higher education attendance for cultural and linguistically diverse students. Ms. King’s recently published works are on culturally responsive Response to Intervention (RTI) and proactive discipline models, and she has designed and taught several semesters of an ASU course on multicultural/bilingual special education. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she was a School Psychologist in urban Phoenix for six years, where she was recipient of honors from the Arizona School Boards Association, and district awards for excellence in education and employee of the year. Ms. King continues to provide consultation and professional development for local school districts and at state and national professional conferences on inclusion, culturally responsive pedagogy, proactive discipline, and RTI.

Lisa Tolentino
Lisa Tolentino is a Media Arts and Sciences doctoral student in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering at Arizona State University. Her approach to social change involves collaborative, creative, and inclusive efforts that connect hybrid physical-digital learning experiences and environments with community-building, cultural inquiry, performance and disability studies. She is committed to transforming communities through media arts perspectives and technology, collaborating on projects such as: storytelling outreach through avant-garde music performance; the Radio Healer project, an indigenous and evolving cross-cultural partnership manifest through music, dance and dialog; and Phoenix's premier contemporary music ensemble, Crossing 32nd Street. She is on the Board of Directors for urbanSTEW, a Phoenix-based not-for-profit collective that creates art and innovative technology for use by communities. She currently heads a team of educators, designers and researchers to build multimodal learning games for high school students in special education. Prior to ASU, Ms. Tolentino earned her BS in Computer Science and MA in Contemporary Percussion Performance from the University of California, San Diego. She has performed with the redfish bluefish percussion group under the direction of Steven Schick, and the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble, performing indigenous Southern Philippine gong music.

Federico Waitoller
Federico R. Waitoller is a doctoral student at Arizona State University in a program to prepare culturally responsive special education professors. He received his Masters of Education degree and his special education teaching certification from the University of Washington at Seattle (UW). While studying at UW, Mr. Waitoller worked as a special educator for students identified as emotionally and behaviorally disabled and as a research assistant at the University of Washington's Behavioral Research Center where he assisted in the implementation and analysis of School Wide Positive Behavior Support Plans. Before he enrolled at the UW, Mr. Waitoller worked as a preschool teacher, Spanish teacher, and residential counselor for mentally ill youth. Mr. Waitoller has published his work in the Journal of Special Education and in edited volumes. He has presented his work at national and international conferences and research forums. Currently, He is the International Programs Team Leader at the Equity Alliance at ASU. Mr. Waitoller's scholarship focuses on educational equity in special education. More specifically, his research examines how equity discourses indexed in policies and professional practices mediate teacher learning for inclusive education and the design and implementation of educational reforms for struggling and marginalized learners. In addition, Mr. Waitoller's scholarship focuses on international comparative studies of equity and inclusive education.