ReelAbilities ReDISCovery Presentation: The Flying Ace
About
7–9 p.m. ET Since its beginnings as a New York City film festival in 2007, ReelAbilities has grown into an international organization using disability-focused cinema year-round to improve storytelling, access, and opportunity. Its new ReDISCovery initiative uses landmark film to connect history, community, culture, and access through four interrelated pillars of partnership, programming, presentation, and perspective. Featuring an all-Black cast, The Flying Ace (1926) is a silent drama about a World War I aviator who returns to his job as a railroad detective just as the paymaster and company payroll disappear. Among its most memorable performers is Steve “Peg” Reynolds, a Black amputee actor and stuntman playing an amputee character, a rarity on screen both then and now. GRAMMY Award-winning musician Matthew Whitaker and composer and musician Robert Derke are creating a new, partially improvised live score that responds to the film in real time.
