Jim Lebrecht Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Charna Flam The Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences has launched an Academy Originals podcast, “The Art of the Documentary.” The new podcast is hosted by Oscar-nominee and “Crip Camp” documentarian Jim LeBrecht. The six-episode season will include LeBrecht sitting down with documentary filmmakers, as they reveal to the host and the audience their filmmaking processes. “The Art of the Documentary,” will chronicle “how a filmmaker approaches their subject and how they engage with it,” according to the press release. The podcast will highlight how the various documentarians work to find new filmmaking approaches, all in an effort to tell their stories in innovative ways. LeBrecht and guests will discuss how they achieve special access and how far they’ll go to get their story — even if that means taking dangerous risks.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentUCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report found some improvement in 2022 in regards to hiring women and people of color, but activist group FWD-Doc is demanding that UCLA address other overlooked groups such as LGBTQIA+ individuals and the “invisible minority” — disabled people — in the industry.Jim LeBrecht, co-founder of FWD-Doc and co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp” (2020), states, “UCLA’s report that stands for promoting diversity is an egregious case of exclusion and perpetuates the misconception that people with disabilities do not exist in the entertainment industry. In light of ‘CODA’s’ three Oscar wins at the recent 94th Academy Awards ceremony, this oversight reinforces FWD-Doc’s assertion that this report is incomplete and not comprehensive.” He adds that other groups have been under-represented, such as LGBTQIA+ people, but were ignored in the study.The ninth annual report, from UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences, covers the top 200 theatrical English-language releases in 2021, ranked by global box office, as well as all major streaming films based on total household ratings.

“I’m a blue jeans and T-shirt kind of guy, so this is quite the moment for me,” says Jim LeBrecht, who along with Nicole Newnham co-directed Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, nominated at the 93rd Academy Awards for best documentary feature. An inspiring story of Camp Jened, a Catskills summer camp for the disabled, Crip Camp is also partly LeBrecht’s story; he has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, and first visited Camp Jened as a teenager in 1971.

LOS ANGELES -- Right down to its production design, the Oscars have not always felt like the most welcoming place for the disabled.“I’ve always seen that stage with its stairs as a symbol that they don’t expect people who had mobility issues to be nominated or to win an award,” said Jim LeBrecht, the co-director and co-star of the Oscar-nominated documentary “ Crip Camp.” “It’s always been this kind of negative tacit statement."This year shows signs of change.

Crip Camp, directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, nabbed the best feature trophy at the International Documentary Association's 2021 awards, which took place Saturday night via an online ceremony amid the coronavirus pandemic. Netflix's Sundance-opening documentary, from Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground production company, about Camp Jened and the birth of the disability-rights movement also received the ABC News VideoSource Award.

A still from Crip Camp by Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

In an awards season where the documentaries “Time” and “Collective” have dominated the year-end honors from critics groups, but it was another film that took the top prize at the 2020 IDA Awards. Instead, Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht‘s “Crip Camp” was honored with Best Feature.

Ellise Shafer administratorThe International Documentary Association has announced the winners of the 36th annual IDA Documentary Awards, with “Crip Camp” taking home the top prize.The ceremony was hosted by actor Willie Garson, with musical entertainment from Ruby Ibarra, who performed the theme from “A Thousand Cuts.”Directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, “Crip Camp” received the best feature award as well as the ABC News VideoSource award.

Best Feature: “Crip Camp” Directors and Producers: Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht. Producer: Sara BolderBest Director: Garrett Bradley, “Time”Best Short: “John Was Trying to Contact Aliens” Director and Producer: Matthew KillipBest Curated Series: “American Experience” Executive Producers: Susan Bellows and Mark SamelsBest Episodic Series: “Last Chance U” Director and Executive Producer: Greg Whiteley.

Attending summer camp is a joyous time for many kids. For filmmaker Jim LeBrecht, it was life-changing.

Can a summer camp change the world? If you’re talking Camp Jened in upstate New York, a place that welcomed kids with disabilities for a generation, the answer is yes.

Despite a lack of theatrical distribution, 2020 has been another banner year for documentaries. It’s no surprise then that a number of acclaimed Oscar contenders didn’t make the cut for the prestigious IDA Documentary Awards.

Best Feature“Collective” (Romania / Magnolia Pictures, Participant. Director/Producer: Alexander Nanau. Producer: Bianca Oana)“Crip Camp” (USA / Netflix.

Jim LeBrecht, the co-director of Sundance doc Crip Camp, Politician actor Ryan J. Haddad and artist-filmmakerTourmaline are amongthe Disability Futures Fellows, announced by the Ford and Andrew W.

The new Netflix documentary “Crip Camp” centers on Camp Jened, a summer camp for those with disabilities. As told in the doc, it would go on to spark something of a revolution in the disability rights movement.

The birth-of-a-movement documentary is a Sundance favorite. From environmentalism to AIDS activism to Occupy Wall Street, it's a genre that reliably informs and stirs emotions, with an occasional by-the-numbers tendency.Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht's Crip Camp elevates itself to the top of that genre heap through smart focus, remarkable archival footage and inspiring subjects.

If “Crip Camp” strikes you as a politically incorrect name for a movie about a summer camp where kids on crutches, in wheelchairs, and otherwise living with disabilities found it possible to feel included rather than ostracized, consider this: The irreverent, stereotype-busting documentary was co-directed by Berkeley-based sound designer Jim LeBrecht, a spina bifida survivor who attended Camp Jened (as the institution was really called) in the early ’70s, and who sees the place as a source of