Boulder JCC: ReelAbilities presents Amazing Grace

Join us in-person or virtually for the ReelAbilities Film Festival screening of Amazing Grace. Grace Fisher was a gifted cellist, pianist, and guitarist, on her way to the world-famous Berklee College of Music in Boston. At her 17th birthday party, she developed a severe pain in her spine. By the time she got to the hospital, 5 minutes away, she couldn’t walk. By that night, she couldn’t breathe. Grace Fisher was diagnosed as patient 101 with Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM), a rare polio-like disease, with no cure and no clear understanding of why this mysterious illness has ravaged the bodies of over 500 children in the US, most of them under the age of 7. AFM strikes every other year. 2020 is expected to be the worst year yet. If this had happened 50 years ago, Gracie would be living in an iron lung, but due to medical progress and the astounding strength and perseverance of this brilliant musician, Grace is able to live a rewarding life as a composer of sublime musical scores for full orchestras, presented to sold-out audiences. Academy Award-winning composer of La La Land, Justin Hurwitz, says, “Gracie is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met.” He compares her symphony, Waltz of the Waves, to the scores of Nino Rota, Academy Award-winning composer of The Godfather. Gracie says it best, “My only limitation will be my imagination.” This 55-minute documentary follows Grace Fisher on her journey from “quadriplegic floating head” to triumphant composer relishing a thunderous ovation in the concert hall. With limitations come powers, and in Gracie’s case, the power to create sublime harmonic beauty. View the trailer HERE. 

4:00 – 4:30 pm – Reception
4:30 – 5:30 pm – Screening of the short film Signs and Gestures followed by the full-length film Amazing Grace
5:30 – 6:00 pm – Talkback with Rabbi Baruch Rosenberg, a Yeshivat Hamivtar alumnus, Storahtelling Maven, and the founder and Spiritual Leader of Ohr HaOlam. Prior to Ohr HaOlam, Rabbi Rosenberg worked in Jewish Education serving the Temple Emanuel Denver Religious School community for over a decade. Inspired by his interactions with various disabled students over the years, Rabbi Rosenberg established Ohr HaOlam as a new, virtual Jewish community dedicated to ensuring full inclusion of all disabled Jewish individuals in all aspects of Jewish life.