Picture This
Jari Osborne
2017
| 33 min
Selections and Awards
Synopsis
What does it mean to be disabled and desirable?
In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we meet Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple” who has made it his mission to make sex and disability part of the public discourse. Andrew embraces his role as a poster boy for the cause with an honesty that is, in itself, a kind of striptease.
We follow Andrew as he plans the second edition of Justify My Love, a sex-positive play party that the international media was quick to call a “handicapped orgy” when it launched in Toronto the year before. Throughout the film, Andrew discusses desire with a candour that cuts through the polite and often hypocritical discourse surrounding disability. “I own all of it. All of the crippled parts of me.”
At the heart of the film is the uneasy dichotomy that disabled people face, of feeling either invisible or like a freak show, especially with regards to their sexuality. With its insistent and unflinching gaze, Picture This invites us to see them for who they are.
Short Synopsis
In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we follow Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple,” as he plans the second edition of Justify My Love—a sex-positive play party that the international media was quick to call a “handicapped orgy” when it launched in Toronto the year before. At the heart of the film is the uneasy dichotomy that disabled people face, of feeling either invisible or like a freak show, especially with regards to their sexuality. With its insistent and unflinching gaze, Picture This invites us to see them for who they are.
Long Synopsis
What does it mean to be disabled and desirable?
How do you assert your sexual identity when you also have to deal with leg bags, personal support workers and a society that would rather look away?
In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we meet Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple” who has made it his mission to make sex and disability part of the public discourse.
We follow Andrew as he plans the second edition of Justify My Love, a sex-positive play party that the international media was quick to call a “handicapped orgy” when it launched in Toronto the year before. As Andrew preps the party and wonders if it will live up to its former fetishized hype, his co-organizer, Stella, shares her own experiences with sexual viability and desire.
We also meet Andrew’s best friend, Tinashe, who helps him navigate the daily ignorance he encounters and the deeper issues at play, and his mother, whose strength and grit helped make Andrew the man he is today: funny, brash, and self-determined in the face of the attitudes he’s made it his life’s work to subvert.
Throughout the film, Andrew discusses desire with a candour that cuts through the polite and often hypocritical discourse surrounding disability. “I own all of it. All of the crippled parts of me.” His insights go deep, but his sense of humour brings a surprising levity and tenderness to a range of subjects—from how to write a dating profile when you’re in a chair, to how to respond when someone expresses shock that people like Andrew can have (or want) sex at all.
At the heart of the film is the uneasy dichotomy that disabled people face, of feeling either invisible or like a freak show, especially with regards to their sexuality. With its insistent and unflinching gaze, Picture This invites us to see them for who they are.
Andrew Gurza
Andrew Gurza is a disability awareness consultant and “cripple content” creator working to make the lived experience of queerness and disability accessible to all. His written work has been featured in Huffington Post, The Advocate, Everyday Feminism, Mashable, and Out.com. He has presented all across North America on what it means to be a Queer Cripple and the intersectionality of sex, queerness and disability. He is also the host of the DisabilityAfterDark podcast. Andrew resides in Toronto, Canada. You can find out more about his work at www.andrewgurza.comor connect with him on Twitter @andrewgurza.
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Promotional Materials
Images
Photo : © Anthony Parazo
Photo : © Jessica Rae
Photo : © Teresa Ascencao & Lens Mosaic
Team
Jari Osborne
Director
Biography
Photo
Photo : David Cain/ Cain Creative
Jari Osborne
Jari Osborne is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. Her evocative debut film, Unwanted Soldiers, uncovered the role that her Canadian-born Chinese father played as a top-secret commando in the Canadian Army at a time when Asians were denied the right to vote. It won a number of awards, including a Gemini and a Hot Docs Best History Award. Her follow-up film, Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story, about a team of Japanese Canadians who played baseball in Vancouver before WWII, was named Best Feature Documentary at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Her other documentary films include Tabitha’s Journey (CTV), The Big Wait (Vision), The Beaver Whisperers (CBC) and Leave it to Beavers (PBS), which picked up an Emmy nod in 2015. Jari was also the Executive Producer of Unstoppable: The Fentanyl Epidemic, which was broadcast to record audiences on the CBC documentary series Firsthand. Her latest NFB film, Picture This, takes on the taboo subject of sex and disability with the signature intelligence, humour and empathy for which Jari has come to be known.
Lea Marin
Producer
Biography
Photo
Photo : NFB
Lea Marin
Lea Marin is an award-winning Toronto-based producer with more than 18 years’ experience in the film and television industry. A graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Producers’ Lab, Lea joined the National Film Board of Canada as a producer in 2006.
Her most recent film credits include Charles Officer’s Unarmed Verses, which won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs 2017 and the 2018 Canada’s Top Ten People’s Choice Award, in addition to being nominated for two Canadian Screen Awards; and Picture This, directed by Jari Osborne, which screened at the Inside Out and OUTeast film festivals, winning Best Canadian Short and the Audience Award for Best Short at both festivals.
Other credits include My Prairie Home, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014 and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award; The Portrait, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hubert Davis; and Astra Taylor’s Examined Life, which launched at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008.
Lea recently completed production on Taylor’s follow-up to Examined Life, the feature doc What Is Democracy?, which will be released in 2018, and is currently in production on Throat, a co-collaboration between filmmaker Chelsea McMullan and artist/activist Tanya Tagaq.
Anita Lee
Executive Producer
Biography
Photo
Photo : NFB
Anita Lee
Anita Lee is Executive Producer at the National Film Board of Canada and leads the development and production of projects produced solely by the NFB as well as domestic and international co-productions for the Ontario Studio. She is the executive producer of a slate of upcoming projects that includes Unarmed Verses and A Better Man.
As a producer for the NFB from 2005 to the present, Anita produced some of the most critically acclaimed works in recent NFB history, including Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, which garnered international recognition and was named Best Documentary Feature Film by National Board of Review, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Canadian Screen Awards, and Best Canadian Film by the Toronto Film Critics Association. Past productions include Tiger Spirit, Gemini Award winner for Best Social/Political Documentary, The Bodybuilder and I, Hot Docs Best Feature Documentary winner, and Flicker, Hot Docs Jury Prize winner, Best Canadian Feature Documentary.
Lee’s most recent credits include Highrise: Universe Within, winner of the 2016 Webby Award as well as Best Original Interactive Production Produced for Digital Media at the Canadian Screen Awards in 2015; The Deeper They Bury Me, which premiered at the New York Film Festival; and most recently, The Apology,runner up Audience Award at Hot Docs International Film Festival and the Cinephile Award for Best Documentary at Busan 2016. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Credits
Written and Directed by
Jari Osborne
Produced by
Lea Marin
Executive Producer
Anita Lee
Director of Photography
David Cain
Editor
Steven Weslak
Sound Recordist
Brent Haliskie
Original Music Composed by
Robert Carli
Featuring
Andrew Gurza
Stella Palikarova
Sher St. Kitts
Tinashe Dune
Aaron Purdie
Production Supervisor
Mark Wilson
Marcus Matyas
Production Coordinator
Kate Vollum
Natalie Van Dine
Technical Coordinator
Marcus Matyas
Kevin Riley
Studio Administrator
Stefanie Brantner
Leslie Anne Poyntz
Additional Cinematography
Daniel Grant
Chris Goll
Additional Sound Recording
Kevin Hemmingson
Neil McIntyre
Scott Tremblay
1st Assistant Camera
Chris Goll
Clark Henderson
Eva Percewicz
Paul Raymond
Alex Motley
Kevin Stewart
Arnold Caylakyan
DMT
Adam Cook
Assistant Editor
Kevin Riley
Production Managers
Christina Carvalho
Laura White
Production Assistants
Sunny Mohajer
Max Wolfond
Chris Niesing
Lindsay Zanatta
Bernard Dawson
Graphics
Cain Creative
Post Picture
Urban Post
Colourist, Online Editor
Andrew Mandziuk
Sound Editor
Claire Dobson
Assistant Sound Editor
Kelly McGahey
Foley
Andy Malcolm
Goro Koyama – Footsteps
Re-recording Mixers
Matt Chan
Sound Facility
Tattersall Sound and Picture
Marketing Manager
Amanda Laukys
Publicist
Jennifer Mair
Legal Counsel
Peter Kallianiotis
Archival Photography Courtesy Of
Adam Moco
Alejandro Santiago
Anthony Parazo
Lens Mosaic
Teresa Ascencao
Jessica Rae
Andrew Gurza
Sher St. Kitts
Music composition © 2017, National Film Board (SOCAN)
Music Assistant
Kristjan Bergey
Cellist
Elizabeth McLellan
Music Credits
“Lonely Heart”
Performed by Dragonette
Written by Martina Sorbara, Daniel Kurtz, Stefan Graslund and Anthony Rossomando
By Arrangement with Zync Music Group LLC
Published by StephanieSays Music / Administered by Downtown Music Publishing LLC
Courtesy of Universal Music Canada Inc.
Special Thanks
Steve Kean
Angus Palmer
George St. Kitts
Mary Lynne Stewart
Alex St. Kitts
Tina Siegel
Realwheels
Mary Beth Menzies
Chris Palmer
Jack Lamon, Come As You Are
Rena Cohen
Daryl Rock
Lindsay Adams
Eva Sweeny
Cori Ross
Tim Palmer
Gavin Wilson, Vancouver Coastal Health
519 Church Street
Kim Sinclair
Merchants of Green Coffee
GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre
Douglas Nyback
Health Initiative for Men – Vancouver
Leslie Lee Kam
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
Azura Rose
Evalyn Parry
Quinto
Shawn Daudlin
Steve Kean
March of Dimes
Lindsay Byam
Gwen Eccleston
Ryan Russell
Pamela Lugonzo
Chandler Borland
Karen Whitehead-Lye
James Johnson
Tim & Natalie Rose
Jordyn Taylor
© 2017 National Film Board of Canada

Press Relations
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About the NFB
The NFB is Canada’s public producer of award-winning creative documentaries, auteur animation, interactive stories and participatory experiences. NFB producers are embedded in communities across the country, from St. John’s to Vancouver, working with talented creators on innovative and socially relevant projects. The NFB is a leader in gender equity in film and digital media production, and is working to strengthen Indigenous-led production, guided by the recommendations of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. NFB productions have won over 7,000 awards, including 27 Canadian Screen Awards, 21 Webbys, 12 Oscars and more than 100 Genies. To access this award-winning content and discover the work of NFB creators, visit NFB.ca, download its apps for mobile devices or visit NFB Pause.