Movies + TV
Nobody's Perfect
Friday, July 31, 2009 - Friday, August 7, 2009
"Nobody's Perfect," a feature-length documentary by Niko von Glasow about a dozen disabled individuals with short arms and legs who reveal the effects of their disability as they prepare to be photographed in the nude.
With a premise that brings smiles to even the most jaded veterans of reality television, filmmaker Niko Von Glasow set out to enlist a group of adults in Germany and England who, like him, were born with a birth defect attributed to the drug Thalidomide, a sleep aid and morning sickness drug widely marketed to pregnant women in Germany and England in the early 60’s.
The resulting process, by turns darkly humorous, poignant and triumphant, gives the models -- and the viewers of the photos as well as the film -- a chance to look at their own bodies in a new light.
Showtimes:
- Fr/Sa/Sun 3:30pm + 5:15pm
- Mo-Thur 4:30pm + 6:10pm
The Thalidomide scandal (the drug was abruptly taken off the market in 1961), with one of the first class action suits against a major drug company in Europe, riveted Germany. In a trial that lasted from 1968 to 1970, 312 class-action plaintiffs agreed to a relatively small settlement (the funds ran out in 1987, requiring the German state to provide continuing care), while the drug maker, Chemie Grünenthal -- founded in 1946, and now Grünenthal GmbH -- succeeded in getting all criminal charges dropped due to insufficient evidence of liability and lack of public interest.
The company, one of several owned and controlled by the Wirtz family, is best-known in Germany as a leading maker of medicines in the pain alleviation category. In the course of the film, members of the Wirtz family are approached (several photographs from the photo shoot are offered for comment), but all of the filmmaker’s efforts for closure in the name of alleviating the psychological pain of the victims, are rebuffed.
Roughly 10,000 children were born with birth defects that for the most part resulted in shortened extremities, and some damage to other organs, but rarely to the brain. Up to 50% of the victims survive today.