| Loving Lampposts | |
| Director: | Todd Drezner |
| Runtime: | 84 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Loving Lampposts is a 2010 documentary film directed by Todd Drezner, exploring the neurodiversity movement and the principle of autism acceptance through a series of interviews and candid footage.[1] [2] Drezner is the father of an autistic child whose attachment to and fascination with lampposts gave the film its title.[3]
The film premiered at the 2010 DocMiami International Film Festival.[4]
In Loving Lampposts, Drezner interviews several neurodiversity advocates and autistic activists about their views on autism, including Kassiane Asasumasu, autistic activist and blogger; Dora Raymaker, autistic activist and co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education, originally a project of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network; Phil Schwarz, an autistic activist affiliated with Autism Network International who is also the father of an autistic son; Stephen Shore, a formerly nonspeaking autistic person who is now a professor of special education at Adelphi University; anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker, father of an autistic child; Estée Klar, creator of The Autism Acceptance Project; and English professor and blogger Kristina Chew, mother of an autistic child.[5] Loving Lampposts also features interviews with parents and autism professionals opposed to the neurodiversity movement, who instead support finding treatments or a cure for autism, including Jenny McCarthy and Doreen Granpeesheh. Drezner also interviews Sharisa Joy Kochmeister, a non-verbal autistic individual who is purported to communicate through the scientifically discredited technique of facilitated communication.[6]