TIFF Opens With Siân Heder’s Crowd-Pleasing ‘Being Heumann’ — and Apple Has Its Next Oscar Contender

There’s no curb cut or ramp. Just a woman and her wheelchair. Director Siân Heder holds on it — and then Judy gives the middle finger.

And it immediately hooks the viewer in for the ride. At least that was the case for the audience inside Roy Thomson Hall, who sat with rapt attention as Heder’s film opened the 51st Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday night. The film is Heder’s first since “CODA,” the Sundance sensation which went on to win the best picture Oscar, a first for Apple Original Films and any streaming company.

It chronicles the true story of how Heumann and her motley crew of activists fought for equal rights by waging a 28-day sit-in protest that helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act. ”I don’t want to make a biopic about you. I want to make ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ with disabled people,” Heder said she told Heumann when she pitched herself to direct the project. After the screening — which ran with open captions, ASL interpreters and live captioning for the onstage portions — Heder sat for a Q&A with her actors to discuss how they made the film and her critical decision to cast actors with disabilities.

Heder’s choice created a massive opportunity for actors like Madeley who has been a wheelchair user since birth. Madeley already idolized Heumann, known as the Mother of the Disability Movement” — “She was funny. She was sexy,” Madeley pointed out.

Here she is the whole ballgame, and she plays Heumann without a single note of the saintly patience that biopics tend to hand their disabled subjects. Madeley’s Judy is funny, tactical, horny and even a little bit of an asshole sometimes. She is passionate about the right things and furious in a way that keeps finding new gears.

The movie also shows what Heder can do with real money behind her. From there, they bring their fight to Washington, D.C. and, finally, to secretary Joseph Califano’s front door. Apple funded the film, and Heder makes the leap look easy.