Guests of Honor
Guests of honor 2009
Jessica Cox
The doctors don't exactly know why Jessica was born without arms. Sonograms and other prenatal tests did not reveal this rare congenital condition. However, from infancy her feet became her hands. Like all children, she went through the various stages of development. She learned to feed herself and write with her feet. Throughout childhood, she participated in many activities including swimming, gymnastics, and tap dancing. Jessica started tae kwon-do when she was ten, earning her first black belt at fourteen in the International Tae Kwon-Do Federation. She rejoined American Tae Kwon-Do Association in college and earned a second black belt.
When first learning to drive, Jessica was encouraged to use special modifications. Even after her car was modified, she decided to remove them and drive without. She holds an unrestricted driver's license.
As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, Jessica attended classes taking notes with her feet. At 25 words per minute, Jessica was able to type out her papers with a regular computer keyboard on the floor. Jessica's greatest challenges are not the ordinary daily tasks required for her to live independently. Putting in contact lenses, washing and brushing her hair, and fixing breakfast in the morning are all tasks that come second-nature to her as they would to anyone else. Her greatest triumph in life stands far above any physical feat. It is her unrepentant regard for herself as a whole person, her high degree of self-acceptance that gives her the freedom and power to insist that society accept her, too, just as she is.
Jessica now pilots planes. She is the first woman pilot in aviation history to fly using her feet. She is a psychology graduate, an activist and inspirational speaker who talks in schools about her experiences.
Jessica will be present at the 3rd Emotion Pictures Documentary and Disability International Film Festival and will pilot a plane over Athens sending messages of determination, dynamism and hope!
Amy Lyne
Acclaimed freelance photographer Amy Lyne, who will join us at the opening ceremony, and director Maria Hadjimichali-Papaliou, Emotion Pictures Festival artistic director, team up in creating a film for the festival, joining voices with internationally renowned personalities: people that support the struggles of the global disability movement and talk to the EMOTION PICTURES camera sending their own message regarding disability. Among them: Oscar-winning (for Slumdog Millionaire) director Danny Boyle, acclaimed director Adrian Lyne (Lolita), famous actors Richard Gere, Eva Mendes, Colleen Camp and Isaach de Bankolé, writer, performer and activist, Sarah Jones, photographer Hank Willis Thomas, Austrian cellist Εrich Οskar Ηuetter and acclaimed Paralympic Games athlete, actress and fashion model, Aimee Mullins.
You can find Amy Lyne's bio and photography work @ http://amylyne.com
Ye Eun Yoo
Eight-year-old Korean pianist Ye Eun Yoo, who was born blind, has been called "the new young Mozart". Ye Eun may not be able to even reach the piano stool but she has the ability to perform with great skill compositions by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven and countless other pieces from the modern pop repertoire. Yet she does not limit herself to the above but she has the extraordinary talent of playing immediately and accompanying melodies she hears for the first time and all this without ever having been taught music!
Her adopted parents discovered her talent about two years ago when her mother was humming a melody and Ye eun began to play on a borrowed piano without having any previous experience. The first songs the girl-wonder played were Beethoven's Fur Elise and Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu.
Ye Eun impressed the world with her striking and moving appearance in a video on the Internet that was viewed 27 million times while her appearance on the Korean talent show "Star King" won her the first prize and had the studio reduced to tears. No one imagined the effect that the participation in the show of Ye Eun, who was up to that time a well-kept secret, would have. At first her mother had decided not to continue Ye Eun's performances but her appearance made such an impression that her evolution into a young star was now a one-way street. That was only the beginning.
After her appearance on "Star King", young Ye Eun played in Los Angeles at the Korean Day celebrations and on Tokyo TV, while she has also played Chopin before the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loonh.
But just like other musical geniuses such as Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, Ye Eun has had a difficult childhood. Abandoned at birth, she was later adopted by Yoo Chang Joo, who was confined to a wheelchair after a car accident. Many doctors have offered to treat Ye Eun but her blindness appears to be incurable. Despite all this, "we never felt that raising her was difficult" declared her parents to a popular Korean magazine.
Every day Ye Eun plays music on the piano given to her by the members of the youthful Korean band "The Super Junior". When journalists ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she replies: "A pianist. A great pianist!"
Young Ye Eun will be present at the closing ceremony on Monday 22 June and will reveal her extraordinary talent to us playing and singing her favorite songs on the piano but also presenting two more surprise songs...
Tomas Young
The 3rd EMOTION PICTURES "Documentary and Disability" International Film Festival joins its voice with the international peace movement and presents during its opening ceremony the award-winning anti-war documentary "Body of War" that devastated audiences and critics all over the world. A film that reveals with raw honesty and moving sensitivity the drama of war and its destructive consequences, negating any frail ideological justification for the military action.
The film revolves around a young veteran of the war in Iraq, Tomas Young who experienced and is still experiencing the tragedy of war in the harshest way. Devastated by the terrorist attacks of 9/11 against the Twin Towers he decided to enlist in the U.S. army in the battle against the Taliban. Soon, war is declared and Tomas finds himself on the front lines in Iraq. Five days later, with his ammunition still intact, he rides in an unarmored, uncovered Humvee. A bullet to his spine leaves Tomas paralyzed from the waist down. He returns home and the harsh reality of a life full of challenges and bitter confutations: the weapons of mass destruction that the supporters of the war claimed Iraq had were never found. From the "baptism of fire" Tomas emerges a new man, wounded, but with tremendous spiritual strength, to support his new mission: to talk about what he went through and constitute living proof of the futility of war.
Tomas' story captivated and inspired the venerable Emmy award-winning U. S. television talk show host Phil Donahue to join forces with independent director Ellen Spiro and to produce and direct Body of War. The musical soundtrack of the film includes two songs written specifically for the film and performed by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Long Nights which lyrically describes Tomas' secret world and No More, a cry of protest against the war which emerges as the first and most devastating anti-war hymn of the 21st century.
Tomas Young will be with us as an official guest of the 3rd EMOTION PICTURES bringing us his own message of life from the ashes of war. His mother Cathy Smith who also appears in the documentary and is at Tomas' side in his struggles and his daily life, will be with him.
