We were lucky to catch up with Allison Norlian recently and have shared our conversation below.

Allison, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Since co-founding my production company, BirdMine, I’ve worked on two meaningful projects.

I’ll start with THIRTEEN, a movie I wrote and co-directed.

THIRTEEN is a short narrative film inspired by real-life—specifically, it’s a love letter to my mother and sister.

The film is about a mother fighting to have a Bat Mitzvah for her nonverbal, developmentally disabled daughter in a synagogue that refuses to break from tradition. My older sister was the first nonverbal, developmentally disabled person to have a Bat Mitzvah at my synagogue in the 1990s.

I was inspired to write and produce THIRTEEN for a few reasons.

When my business partner Kody Leibowitz and I decided to create our company and venture into narrative writing/filmmaking, I tried to think of the films I needed as a child—films that would have helped me feel seen while I was growing up with a profoundly disabled sister in a single-parent household.

Many moments in my young life stuck out to me, especially when I saw my mother advocate for my sister, including my sister’s Bat Mitzvah. Ultimately, I decided to write a short film loosely inspired by this moment to help people with disabilities, their families, and the Jewish community feel seen while educating people on the outside.

Although the film centers on Jewish life and disability, it is relatable to everyone as it looks at traditionalism, inclusion, and
progression.

Meanwhile, since 2020, my business partner and I have been working on MEANDERING SCARS, a feature-length documentary about a woman paralyzed in a domestic violence incident who spent the better part of two decades depressed and suicidal. Then, in 2019, she discovered a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities compete in obstacle course races, like the Spartan and Tough Mudder; she started participating, which changed her life.

She then decided to make it her mission to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, located in
Tanzania, to spread awareness about mental health struggles and suicide in the disability community. She contemplated suicide often during her life and has had multiple friends with disabilities die by suicide.

But the film is about more than just the climb. It is about our story subject’s journey as a disabled person in America. It is about how inaccessibility, perceived burdensomeness, and financial turmoil due to a faulty system contributed to her deteriorating mental health and suicide ideation. It’s about overcoming and working through those dark feelings and how she helps other disabled people today. The Kilimanjaro climb is just a part of a bigger narrative.

As the sister of a woman who is profoundly developmentally disabled and the granddaughter of someone who was physically disabled because of multiple sclerosis, I have dedicated my career to changing the way the world views disability, which is why these two projects — my first two films — are deeply meaningful to me.

Allison, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I began my career as a journalist and worked as a television reporter/anchor in various markets on the East Coast. I became a journalist, hoping to amplify the voices and stories of people with disabilities like my sister. During my tenure, I was nominated for three Emmy awards and won a Catalyst For Change award from the ARC of Virginia for my work on the disabled community.

I loved being a journalist but found myself yearning for more — yearning to tell longer-form, more impactful stories than I could in the news industry. So, in 2020, I started BirdMine with my friend and business partner, Kody. Kody, whom I met at one of my five internships in college, and I created BirdMine as an extension of what we already did as journalists — a production company focusing on socially relevant stories concentrated on populations that often find themselves in the shadows.

Our first two movies are MEANDERING SCARS, a feature documentary, and THIRTEEN, a short film I described in the last question.

We have many goals for BirdMine and what we want to achieve with our films.

We hope BirdMine is so successful that our production company can eventually work like the A24 model but with socially conscious films. We hope to finance other filmmakers who are doing great work to create their socially conscious movies under the BirdMine name.

Thirteen is currently on the festival circuit (we have screened so far at the California Women’s Film Festival and are an award winner for the LA Independent Women Film Awards and Independent Shorts Awards). We also had three private screenings for Thirteen. Meandering Scars is in post-production with the goal of being finished by the fall of this year.

We are both currently working on narrative projects and in the process of researching for our next documentary.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My older sister Becky, who, as I said, is profoundly disabled, taught me so much about life just by being my sister. I learned at an early age how inaccessible and unbearable the world can be — especially if you are a person with a disability.

I set out to change this reality by educating people about what people with disabilities and their families experience; I also hope through my work, I help people with disabilities and their families feel seen.

My work aims to change how the world views disability while creating a more inclusive, accessible, and compassionate society.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is making people feel seen – especially those who have felt isolated and alone because of systemic societal realities.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.birdmine.com
• Instagram: BirdMineStories
• Facebook: BirdMine
• Linkedin: BirdMine

Image Credits

N/A