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Don’t worry world! We always support watching documentaries legally and many of the films we recommend on Influence Film Club are available where you live too. We suggest using your preferred method for watching a film – such as searching iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, VOD platforms (video-on-demand), or renting/buying a DVD.

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Notes On Blindness

Following the award-winning short film of the same name, the feature version of NOTES ON BLINDNESS documents John Hull’s extraordinary journey into “a world beyond sight,” utilizing his own audio material and a creatively inspired take on the documentary medium in order to understand his transition to blindness.

Director: Pete Middleton, James Spinney
Year: 2016
Time: 90 min

 Notes on Blindness
(2016) on IMDb

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International: Netflix
UK: JustWatch
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Ways to Influence

Share NOTES ON BLINDNESS with others. Although we strongly urge the feature-length format as the best way to delve into issues, this film also comes in two shorter versions: 3-minutes and a 12-minutes, a great way to inspire your time-deprived friends and family.

Read one of John Hull’s many books, including Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness, inspired by his audio recordings, and On Sight and Insight: A Journey into the World of Blindness.

Experience the virtual reality project connected to the film, an ambitious attempt to immerse viewers into the mind of a blind individual and bridge the gap between the sighted and blind worlds.

Learn about how Audio Description and the MovieReading app are making the visual images of theater, television, movies, and other art forms more accessible to all.

Related Articles and Resources

Super Powers For the Blind and Deaf

The brain rewires itself to boost the remaining senses.

Find out more at Scientific America.

The Case for Reenactment in Documentary Cinema

Read the article on Flavorwire.

Adversity and the Creative Mind

“Everyone experiences adversity, but some people use adversity to their psychological advantage. Do you? As we age, we learn more about ourselves and how we cope with struggle and hardship. New research suggests creativity may play a key role in determining our ability to thrive in tough times.”

Continue reading on Psychology Today.

10 Little-known Facts About Blindness

Do you think you know everything there is to know about blindness? Think again.

Read this article to find out more.

What Is It Like To Be Blind

“As someone who’s losing her sight to retinitis pigmentosa (RP), I face this question every day. I, however, have Usher syndrome, which couples deafness and gradual vision loss, so I’m not representative of the average blind and low-vision individual. That being said, as someone who has moved from sighted into legal blindness, I’ve noticed certain interesting changes in my lifestyle and how people treat me. This isn’t a subject that can be explained briefly, so please forgive me in advance for my lengthiness.”

Read the article on Slate.

John Hull Obituary

Read it on the Guardian.

Directors Discuss Their Tribute To Blind Theologian John Hull

“That’s what a lot of our aesthetic choices around our use of light and shadow and of the way we framed the characters corresponded to John’s sort of receding visual memory of the world and what people’s faces looked like. All those little types of aesthetic choices were carefully kind of planned out to try and suggest something of John’s reduced world of blindness.”

Read the full interview on Screen Anarchy.

Interview With John Hull

“As a vision rehabilitation professional, I’m always looking for inspiring books to recommend to the people I serve and their families. Among the many voices that have chronicled their struggles and triumphs as adults adapting to vision loss, Professor John Hull, Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham, England stands out for evocative prose and incisive observations”

Continue reading here.

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