"For Once In My Life," a documentary film about the disabled singers and musicians who make up the Spirit of Goodwill Band, will be aired Tuesday, Jan. 25 at the auditorium of the Long Beach Main Branch Library, 101 Pacific Ave. The free film will be followed by a panel discussion.
The film is the latest in the series of monthly movies and panel discussions under the auspices of the Independent Television Service's Community Cinema series being showed at the Library.
A national series, Community Cinema premieres movies in advance of their national broadcasting on PBS. The free screenings are shown in more than 60 communities nationwide. In Long Beach they are aired monthly on the last Tuesday when the City Council is not in session.
"For Once In My Life" is described as a film that "challenges preconceived notions about what it means to be disabled."
The story revolves around the 28-member Spirit of Goodwill Band, "about "a unique assembly of singers and musicians who live with varying degrees of physical and mental disability. They bond over their mutual love of music, and their fierce drive to improve and play to ever-larger audiences."
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Janet McCarthy-Wilson, President and CEO of Goodwill, Southern Los Angeles County; Chuck Scarpaci, Director of LINKS, Sign Language Interpreting Services; Helen Dolas, Founder and CEO of Arts and Services for the Disabled, Inc.; and moderated by Frances Emily Dawson Harris, community activist on disability issues.
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