Becoming Bulletproof Comes to Cinematheque: CIFF Award Winner Returns to Cleveland

Becoming Bulletproof, the prestigious Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award-winner at this year’s CIFF, returns to Cleveland for a two-night engagement at Cinematheque, Saturday May 2 and Sunday May 3.

The captivating documentary showcases the lives of American adults and kids who’ve been dealt challenges and who, once a year come together for the annual film project run by Zeno Mountain Farm, based in Vermont. Brothers Will an Peter Halby and their wives Vanessa and Ila, nurture the program. Each year the movie’s a new genre and it’s shot in L.A. No one gets paid – not the actors and not the tireless volunteers. Everyone is there because they want to be there. Because their hearts are all in.

In 2012, they shot a western appropriately called Bulletproof. And while they were making their movie, director Michael Barnett filmed this beautiful cast of characters, each worthy of their own story.

I had the pleasure to meet Barnett in person at the CIFF screening. If kindness had a spokesman, it would be him. Once credits rolled, there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater. And, if that wasn’t enough, when the lights came up, we saw and got to interact with the majority of the cast, all flown for the Cleveland screening. They led the Q&A, passed out DVDs of Bulletproof and talked about their anticipated excitement of going to the Rock Hall.

A.J. Murray is the break-out hero of the Becoming Bulletproof. A young man strapped to wheelchair, he gets through his typical day dependent on his mother’s care. AJ also knows every line to every television show and movie. Because he loves the screen, both big and small. He’s also quite charming and a bit of a flirt. I loved meeting him, and the rest of the cast and crew. Their energy is contagious. Their sense of love and purpose and presence is a lesson to us all. The photo I snapped of everyone during the Q&A truly says it all.

If you were one of the lucky ones in that theater at that screening, then you witnessed all that is good with humanity. In this ego-centric, cynical, insecure world where bad news travels fast (if it bleeds, it leads), watching Becoming Bulletproof taught those of us paying attention, what’s important and what’s possible, if we’re open enough to look at people from a lens that doesn’t seem to fit the typical camera.

Barnett knew this, so by committing to this documentary, he actually put the camera on us. The characters in this film, fully aware of what limitations others put on them, post even one shooting cycle, transform. They break all those limitations through hard work and dedication: they memorize lines, they get into costume and they act out simple and complex scenes, both dramatic and humorous. They laugh, they cry, they get engaged, they break up.

They are not victims. They are stars.

Info: Cinematheque, at the Cleveland Institute of Art. 11141 East Boulevard. Cleveland, OH 44106. 216.421.7450