We Regret to Inform You

This Canadian documentary short wittily takes on Canada's national pension plan, specifically the program's penchant for rejecting 60% of disabled applicants who are trying to receive disability benefits. At the center of filmmaker Eva Colmers's We Regret to Inform You is co-director Dr. Heidi Janz, a university professor with profound disabilities who was recently released from her teaching position because of budget cuts. Demoted to an adjunct professor (she keeps an office for writing but receives no income), Janz undergoes a complicated regimen every morning in preparation for her day that involves a couple of assistants who get her through the most basic self-care functions. From there, Janz meets with a dramaturge about a play she is writing, and then heads for her office computer. Janz's level of ambition and accomplishment (despite enormous problems speaking clearly) underscore the preposterous irony of the government's rejection of her disability claim: Canada has decided that Janz is too smart and too functional to get the help that she so obviously and desperately needs. An insightful short about inadequate definitions of disability, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)