Blind Faith

Blind Faith is an hour-long documentary that follows David, a successful businessman who has in many ways defied his blindness, as he struggles to truly come to terms with his disability. It begins with his marriage to Isabel, which coincides with the loss of his last dim experiences of sight. Their partnership makes many of his needs to adapt to total blindness invisible to him. She is his passport back into the world of the sighted. Feeling confident and on track, David decides he wants to experience fatherhood and the couple adopt their daughter, Anna. Anna's adoption and their 14-year trajectory together as a family force David to confront his blindness in new and meaningful ways.

The bond between Anna and David is the highlight throughout--how it changes, how they change, what it is like to be a parent who is blind, what is it like to have a blind father. Isabel's voice adds a dimension to David's struggle as we come to better understand how independence and dependence play off each other in a marriage where one person has a disability. The documentary is about being different; it's about acceptance of that difference and all the pain and freedom that comes with it; and it's about trust that grows between a blind father and his daughter, between a blind man and his guide dog, and finally trust in oneself. Interviews with Anna and David as well as footage taken over this period show how they have navigated a sometimes distant, sometimes close bond that is ever transforming. In the end, David comes to a realization that he cannot escape the life-changing impact of his disability or hope that he will be exempt in some way from the ordinary trials of being human. Instead, his limitations provide him with an unexpected mandate to develop community and learn trust. David's journey reaches blind and visually impaired audiences with a recognizable portrayal of their own complicated reality. It takes a sighted audience into the unknown world of the blind and the trials and choices that accompany blindness--unfamiliar in many ways, yet poignantly visible to all of us.