Being Heumann: Book vs. Movie
Siân Heder's 2026 film Being Heumann draws on Judith Heumann and Kristen Joiner's memoir Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. Ruth Madeley plays Heumann during the 1977 fight for disability rights.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Judith Heumann
- Year
- 2020
- Pages
- 232Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 6 hr 38 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Ali Stroker
Judy Heumann recounts a life spent challenging institutions that treated disabled people as problems to exclude. Written with Kristen Joiner, her memoir moves from barriers to schooling and employment in New York to collective action for civil rights in California and Washington. Personal experiences of discrimination become the groundwork for her account of organizing, protest and the struggle to make legal protections meaningful.
- Director
- Siân Heder
- Year
- 2026
- Cast
- Ruth Madeley, Madeline Delp, Mark Ruffalo, Dylan O'Brien
- Genre
- biographical film, drama film, historical film
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
In 1977, Judy Heumann and other disabled activists occupy federal offices to demand that the government put civil rights protections into effect. Staying in the building turns an act of protest into the daily work of sustaining a community under pressure. With officials refusing to act, Judy and her allies must keep the occupation together long enough to make their demands impossible to dismiss.
No comments yet. Vote, then say why.