The last two posts have focused on Joey Travolta’s Inclusion Films. How did Joey Travolta first get into teaching filmmaking to Autistic kids?
Well the idea for the program happened almost by accident–Inclusion Films grew out of Travolta’s experiences of working with Autistic kids in another project. Travolta was helping his daughter organise a film festival at her high school, when the mother of an Autistic teenage boy (Taylor Cross) asked if he could help her son make a film about being Autistic. This happened after the mother (Keri Bowers) had read a newspaper article about Travolta’s involvement in the school film festival and his acting workshops for children. Travolta eventually mentored the mother-son team and together they made the 2006 documentary, ‘Normal People Scare Me’…
Here is a link to a video on the documentary which was expanded into a feature-length film: Normal People Scare Me - YouTube
(sources: On Location: Inclusion Films opens doors in Hollywood - latimes.com; Episode 0006-Autism Talk Radio-Free and Low-Cost Success Strategies that Work for Autism with Keri Bowers : Autism Talk Radio)