My wonderful friend Lei Wiley-Mydske and I are thrilled to announce another venture into the world of livetweeting film! We have done a couple of livetweets together over the last few months and they have gone rather well.

Our first livetweet happened without any real planning as a collaborative effort to support one another online and in real-time to view Autism Speaks’ Sounding the Alarm: Battling the Autism Epidemic, when this travesty of a film came out on Netflix. We took the opportunity to tweet a rather scathing review of the film and make commentary on the way that the perspective of Autism Speaks and their stigmatizing fear-based rhetoric is harmful to Autistic people… and we may have thrown virtual rotten twitter tomatoes at it… but don’t quote me on that.

Our second livetweet was for a lovely film, Vectors of Autism: A Documentary about Laura Nagle, which was well received. We put a bit more planning into this and were pleased to facilitate an event that had Vectors at the centre of a community building experience that also promoted the film.

A month or so ago I was sent a copy of a wonderful new film, Citizen Autistic, which is educator/filmaker William Davenport’s second documentary feature. Citizen Autistic examines “the growing autism rights movement and the people on the frontlines who are fighting for autistic individuals to have a place at the table when it comes to framing the global dialogue about ASD issues.”

So now I have a copy of the film… and Lei has a copy she purchased for her Autism Acceptance Library. (Yes… Lei is fabulous: she started her own library… which you can read about here.)

And since we both loved it, Citizen Autistic seemed to be the perfect film for our next livetweet.

We think this has all the makings of a really positive online community event, and we are also quite taken with the accessibility of this – because people can participate from all over the world – right from their homes. This accessibility is even better because Citizen Autistic is currently available for free in the US on Hulu (*see note below).  And… of course, ultimately, we are signal boosting and amplifying a really important documentary that focuses upon and explores Autistic activism and issues of social justice and human rights, that we hope will be more widely seen because of our collective efforts .

We invite you to join us for the livetweet to bring positive attention to an important film. And… wonderful news, William Davenport and Cinema Libre‘s, Sean Flanagan, are going to join us! It will be really magnificent to have the director/producer/writer/editor join us.

And, hey… ya nevah know who else might show up…

We are planning to have the synchronized online screening and livetweet on Monday, January 19 at 6:00 PST, and we will connect and coordinate using the hashtag #citizenautistic.

We hope you will join us in viewing and livetweeting Citizen Autistic and help us to support and amplify/signal boost this important film.

*Note: for those of us not residing in the US, it appears that a digital copy of the film can be “rented’ for 72 hours for 2.99… https://vimeo.com/ondemand/citizenautistic/111797242

And here is Lei’s post about our live tweet.

Related  Links:

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/citizenautistic

Website:
Citizen Autistic directed by William Davenport, Documentary Film Website

Hulu:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/724988

DVD sale page:
http://store.cinemalibrestore.com/citizen-autistic-dvd.html

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30 Days of Autism is a project designed to fight stigma, promote civil rights, and increase understanding and acceptance for those who process and experience the world differently.

© Leah Kelley, Thirty Days of Autism (2015)