Being Heumann, the Apple Original film about disability rights activist Judy Heumann, premieres globally on Apple TV today, Friday, November 13 — and its arrival also marks the debut of a new accessibility feature that lets viewers watch supported titles with a sign language interpreter on screen. The Being Heumann Apple TV premiere is one of three new originals landing on the platform today.
Directed by Academy Award winner Siân Heder, whose film CODA won Best Picture, Being Heumann stars Ruth Madeley as Heumann, the activist who in 1977 led more than 100 disability rights protesters in a sit-in at a federal building in San Francisco. The protest, demanding enforcement of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, became the longest occupation of a federal building in American history. The film follows Heumann as she turns her outrage at a system that treated disabled people as a burden into a revolution.
A film built on authentic casting
Madeley, herself a disabled actor, plays Heumann in a production that has put authentic representation at its centre. Apple describes Heumann as scrappy, defiant and done being treated like a burden, and the film is the second collaboration between Apple Original Films and Heder after CODA, which made history as the first film with a predominantly Deaf cast to win Best Picture. The film runs two hours and seven minutes and carries an R rating for language, some sexual material and drug use. It opened in select cinemas on November 6, a week ahead of today’s streaming debut.
Sign language arrives with the premiere
The premiere also launches Sign Language, a new accessibility feature for the Apple TV app that gives viewers the option to watch supported titles with American Sign Language or British Sign Language interpretation in the corner of the screen. Apple announced the feature on November 10, and Being Heumann is its first title. The feature is also available for F1 The Movie, with Greyhound and Way of the Warrior Kid gaining support later this year.
For Apple TV, the film leads a triple debut today alongside the heist thriller 12 12 12 and the first of two holiday specials coming to the platform this season. But Being Heumann is the one with a story that reaches beyond the screen: the 1977 sit-in it depicts changed American disability law, and the film brings that history to the widest audience it has ever had. The Chosen season 6 premieres Sunday on Prime Video, and The Body premiered today on Netflix with Sofia Wylie leading.
