Friday, June 13
6:00 PM - 7:45 PM

Center for American Progress

1333 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

Life After

Director

Reid Davenport

Executive Producers

Jess Devaney, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Carrie Lozano, Lois Vossen, Dawn Bonder, Daniel Chalfen, Marci Wiseman, James Costa, Meryl Metni, Sheri Sobrato

Producer

Colleen Cassingham

Editor

Don Bernier

Consulting Editor

Co-Editor

Assistant Editor

Cinematographer

Amber Fares

Additional Cinematography

Music

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe

Sound

Narration

Contact

Multitude Films, Colleen Cassingham, colleen@multitudefilms.com

A gripping personal investigation, LIFE AFTER uncovers the tangled web of moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying. Disabled filmmaker Reid Davenport exposes shocking abuses of power while amplifying the voices of the disability community in their fight for justice and dignity in an unfolding matter of life and death.

In 1983, a disabled Californian woman named Elizabeth Bouvia sought the “right to die,” sparking a national debate about autonomy and the value of disabled lives. After years of courtroom battles, Bouvia vanished from the public eye. Sundance-winner Davenport embarks on a personal investigation to uncover what happened to Bouvia, revealing why her story is disturbingly relevant today.

Through LIFE AFTER, the missing voices of the disability community are brought to light in the ongoing debate about assisted dying, exposing chilling stories of disabled people dying prematurely. Davenport challenges the notion that assisted dying always represents a free choice when, for some, it may feel like the only option.

Director, Life After

Reid Davenport makes documentaries about disability from an overtly political perspective. His first feature film, I Didn’t See You There, won the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the McBaine Bay Area Documentary Award at San Francisco International Film Festival. It had a national broadcast on POV in 2023. The film has been hailed by critics as “first-person poetry in captivating motion, expressed with a singular, assured artistic voice” and a “must-see.” In 2020, Reid was named to DOC NYC’s “40 Filmmakers Under 40.” His short film, A Cerebral Game, won the Artistic Vision Award at the 2016 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival for “creating a visual landscape that is at once disorienting and nostalgic – and the result is so raw and compelling it’s impossible to turn away.”

Along with A Cerebral Game, his short documentaries Wheelchair Diariea and Ramped Up are distributed by New Day Films. Reid was a 2017 TED fellow and gave a TED Talk about incorporating his own literal body into his filmmaking. His work has been featured by outlets like NPR, PBS, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Reid holds an MFA in Documentary Film & Video from Stanford University and a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from The George Washington University.