Apple TV is to screen director Sian Heder’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning “CODA,” a biopic about the life of a woman who got the government to take action over the rights of disabled people.
In 2022, Sian Heder directed and co-wrote “CODA,” which earned Apple TV the first-ever Best Picture Oscar for a streaming service. Apple immediately announced that it was backing Heder to direct a dramatization of Judy Heumann’s bestselling memoir, and the finished film is now heading for theaters and Apple TV.
Co-written by Heder and Rebekah Taussig, “Being Heumann” stars Ruth Madeley as Heumann. Best known for “Doctor Who” and Russell T. Davies’s “Years and Years,” Madeley has spina bifida and is wheelchair-bound.
Heumann contracted polio in the late 1940s aged 18 months and spent most of her life in wheelchairs. According to Entertainment Weekly, Heder was shown a documentary about her and cold-emailed Heumann about making a film of her life.
“She was so forceful and hilarious and blunt and empathetic and all of these contradictions,” says Heder. “And I thought, ‘I do need to tell this story, and I’d love to meet this woman.'”
Heumann became known as the mother of the Disability Rights Movement, chiefly because of her 1977 sit-in. Aiming to persuade President Carter to enact the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Heumann led sit-ins that occupied federal buildings including Washington, D.C., and New York City.
The protests were known as the 504 Sit-ins, after section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act which states that no otherwise qualified handicapped individual could be excluded from programs that receive federal funding. Heumann helped with the recognition of disabled rights and section 504 was finally enacted..
Heumann died unexpectedly in March 2023, aged 75. She had one Zoom call with actor Madeley before then. “I was completely in awe. I was so desperate for her to like me,” Ruth Madeley says. “I feel really privileged that she knew my name.”
“Her grit, her joy, and her complexities all make her so much fun to play,” she continued. “Also, to have Sian at the helm was a huge pull for me.”
Judy Heumann headed the 1970s sit-ins that led to greater disability rights – image credit: Apple TV
The film is based on the book “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist” by Judy Heumann. Co-writer Rebekah Taussig is also the author of the 2020 memoir “Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body.”
“Being Heumann” is to open the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 10, 2026, to September 20. It will then get a theatrical run from November 6, 2026, before streaming on Apple TV from November 13.
Whether or not “Being Heumann” has any chance at repeating Heder and Apple’s Oscar success depends on exactly how the film’s theatrical window is managed. Directly following Apple’s win, the Academy Awards introduced new rules which limit what films can qualify for the Oscars.
To be eligible for consideration, the initial one-week release of “Being Heumann” in theaters will have to include one of six US metro areas including Los Angeles County, New York, Chicago, the Bay Area, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Atlanta. It will then have to be followed by another week-long run in 10 of the top 50 US Markets, no later than 45 days after that initial release.
There are more rules, and they vary for different Oscar categories. But overall the rules have effectively made it harder for streamers to win the Best Picture Oscar.
This story originally appeared on Appleinsider
