Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy

Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy focuses on two women with disabilities who strive to maintain their independence in a society that tends to institutionalize and warehouse the less-than-able. Diana Braun, who has Down syndrome, has for the past 38 years been a nurse/assistant to Kathy Conour, a woman with severe cerebral palsy, who needs a motorized wheelchair for mobility and uses a breath-powered talking computer for speech. Over the course of the film's 40-minute running time, the duo attempt to lobby elected officials in their native Illinois and on Capitol Hill concerning the rights of the disabled—efforts that are derailed for a while when Amtrak workers wind up breaking Kathy's hip when attempting to load her wheelchair onto a train. In the midst of this trauma, Diana tries (in vain) to reestablish contact with her estranged mother, whose violence resulted in Diana being removed from her family's home during her childhood. Unfortunately, filmmaker Alice Elliott leaves a great many holes in this real-life narrative—it's never clear who is organizing the women's travels or how they're able to afford a nice home and modern car (at one point Diana admits that the pair have about $200 in their joint checking account), and while the film ends with the women receiving a special award for their activism work, the details of their involvement in advocacy measures for the disabled is sketchy. Optional. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)