Looking for a great disability and development film? "Emmanuel's Gift" comes pretty close...

By Barbara Duncan (barbaraduncan@gmail.com)

As a media person, after two or three days of a disability conference replete with plenary sessions, break-out rooms, workshops, and at least 99 tiny-fonted powerpoints with pie-charts and arrows,  I always start wondering why more presenters don’t use videos to illustrate their ideas. Then, to stay awake, I make little lists of which videos might have made particular presentations more memorable.

In conferences about disability in developing countries, this is a more difficult exercise because on this topic there just aren’t that many good films or videos out there yet. There are some that sell a particular organization’s approach or project, some that give glimpses of what life is like in a particular country, but few that leave the viewer feeling they now understand something about both the complexity of problems facing people with disabilities in poor countries and their possible solutions.

“Emmanuel’s Gift” does that, and a lot more in, unfortunately, 80 minutes. This is the compelling story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, who was born in Ghana with only one fully developed leg, but eventually bicycles across the country and runs marathons to change the image of disability. Shortly after Emanuel’s birth, not atypically, his father abandons the family and his mother is encouraged to poison him. Through support from his mother and family who decide to send him to school rather than out to beg, Emmanuel is given just enough opportunity to make the difference.

Highlights
Early on, we get a window on his failsafe approach to life: when the neighborhood kids won’t let him play in their soccer games, he saves up enough money from shining shoes to buy his own ball. The kids can use the new ball, but only if they include Emmanuel.

Relying on his grit and charm, he finds odd jobs to help support the family, chagrined that all around him disabled people are sitting in the streets of towns and cities begging. Emmanuel decides to change all this –the whole panorama—not just his situation, but how disabled people perceive themselves and how others all across Ghana, from politicians to chiefs to kings, view disabled persons. He resolves to lead by example. Somehow he convinces the U.S. based Challenged Athletes Foundation to send him a mountain bike to cross the country, and with one useful leg, he does, stopping everywhere to engage people in discussions about how disabled individuals can and do contribute, even in Ghana. Next, local radio programs take up his cause and he finds whole villages and towns awaiting his arrival.

This story continues with Emmanuel meeting with disability organizations throughout Ghana, traveling to the U.S. as a guest of the foundation, where he is given a free operation and a first class prosthesis. His new 21st century prosthetic leg enables him to participate in marathons and cut hours off his biking records. After winning a monetary prize from Nike, matched by the Foundation, Emmanuel returns to Ghana to set up his own foundation to provide educational scholarships, wheelchairs and sports opportunities to disabled youths. 

He articulates a clear vision that this tripod of school, basic assistive technology and involvement in sports will give disabled children the edge they need.

We see him taking time with disabled children, waiting days to gain hearings from politicians, giving pacific, dignified explanations of why everyone should have a chance at life, turning every opportunity and gift that comes his way into something to benefit disabled Ghanaians. This may all sound a bit much, a touch too saccharine for savvy cineastes, but Emmanuel is for real, a modest, but confident soul who will search his way around any obstacle, relentlessly, quietly, like water.

Problem: TM$
In the U.S., kids now roll their eyes and say “TMI,” when any adult is going on a bit long, telling them more than they want to know, as in “too much information.” The main problem I found with this film was TM$ or ‘too much money.” Apparently having more funding than necessary to tell this story well, or rather, to just let Emmanuel tell his story, the filmmakers surround and interrupt this powerful narrative with pointless interviews of Emmanuel’s relatives, windy back stories on the Foundation and associated Americans, and way TMI about Emmanuel’s operation and awards. Then they laced the production with morose and maudlin music (offset occasionally by some upbeat African drumming) and a distractingly emotional narration by Oprah (cue to cry) Winfrey, an American talk show host who has recently become supportive of African causes. There are awkward scenes where Hollywood actor Robin Williams is brought on stage just long enough to mispronounce Emmanuel’s name and where fellow Ghanaian Kofi Annan, in what seems to be a private meeting (except for the camera, crew and us), tells Emmanuel little homilies about Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Easily, half an hour could have been pared.

All that said, I highly recommend this film: Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah is an original, and testimony to the adage that one person can still make a difference. You should not miss the chance to get to know him and his vision for Ghana. Towards the end of the film, one of his friends casually says that Emmanuel reminds him of Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela and the remark did not seem excessive.

Mainstream reactions to the film
This film has had a lot of screenings and publicity across the U.S. and curious as to what mainstream critics thought of it, I visited one of my favorite media websites: www.rottentomatoes.com
One of the most instructive comments was a complaint that the film raised serious questions that remained unanswered, such as “why 10 % of Ghana’s population is disabled.” Confused, I read the review in full and finally concluded that because in the film this statistic had been applied to Ghana without explaining that it was based on a global guesstimate that 10% of any population is disabled, this critic had the impression that Ghana was particularly plagued by rampant physical disability and believed the filmmakers should have been investigating why, rather than pursuing other less important tangents! I say instructive, because it is a valid reminder that some of the slogans and shorthand we are used to in the disability field make no sense whatsoever to the general public or, even, film critics. In general, mainstream critics were uniformly positive about Emmanuel’s story and somewhat less so about the length and other aspects.

P.S.
The film’s afterword states that Ghana’s bill of disability rights, advocated by Emmanuel and all the main disability groups there, has been drafted but is still awaiting passage by parliament. According to coverage of Ghana’s celebration of International Day of Disabled Persons on December 3 at www.ghanatoday.com, that is still the case.

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah in Accra (photo by Lisa Lax, courtesy of www.emmanuelsgift.com)

Emmanuel at Elmina Castle, Cape Coast (photo by Samson Chan, courtesy of www.emmanuelsgift.com)

Emmanuel at the San Diego Triathlon Challenge (photo courtesy Challenged Athletes Foundation www.emmanuelsgift.com)

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