It’s not about who wins, it’s about a filmmaker seeing an idea come to life on the big screen, said Lori Balogh, community inclusion manager for the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
Twenty-one clients of the agency as well as friends, family, and residents of the community will see their ideas come to life during the organization’s 11th annual CommUNITY Film Festival at the Maumee Indoor Theater from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.
“It’s a great thing for individuals to give you another avenue of who they are, what they do, and see the growth in some people from 11 years ago to today,” Ms. Balogh said. “We have one individual who is working a remote job at home now and who would have thought that would have happened 11 years ago? He’s doing data entry, so that’s pretty cool.”
The filmmakers will have the opportunity to win awards in seven categories including the celebrating life, celebrating community, everyday living, promoting inclusion, creativity, inspiring audiences, and the people’s choice category, which is voted on live by audience members at the event.
This year’s audience will get to watch films covering a wide range of topics including the reason why one client is interested in animals and their work with animals as well as superhero movies.
“We have a couple of superhero movies,” Ms. Balogh said. “They’re more on the creative side. ... We have villains robbing the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities, and he’s there to save the day. We have one [called] Captain Kindness. Someone was being mean to someone else, and he flies in and talks to them about how to be kind.”
Cassandra Wilson, a client at Lucas County Developmental Board of Disabilities who lives in Toledo, said her film is about the volunteer work she does advocating for people with disabilities at the local, state, and federal levels.
Ms. Wilson has been an advocate for people with disabilities since 2005, recently becoming the first person in Lucas County to be appointed as a member of the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2024.
The longtime advocate has also volunteered for organizations including We Thrive Together, a nonprofit that supports people suffering from self-isolation and loneliness.
She became an advocate because of her experiences with her own disabilities, which include epilepsy and Asperger's syndrome, Ms. Wilson said.
When she was a figure skater while she was young, for example, Ms. Wilson was discouraged by parents of the other figure skaters from being on the team, she said.
“I had parents say, ‘Oh, she doesn’t belong here at all. This is regular figure skating, she needs to go to special ed,’ [but] I marched home with gold medals,” Ms. Wilson said. “There’s a lot of us who don’t have a voice out there. We need people to understand us. ... We can do anything.”
Corey Case, who lives in Delta, Ohio, said his film will highlight his experiences living with autism.
Mr. Case said he was encouraged to enter the festival by his father, the pair working together to come up with the idea for the film.
“I’m pretty excited about seeing all the other videos that people put together,” Mr. Case said.
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