Film on online dating is a big draw at festival that aims to end stigma towards disabled

Blind Date, a documentary by a filmmaker from Houston in the United States that follows three blind New Yorkers as they face challenges of the digital age in their quest for love is the star attraction at ReelAbilities Houston Film & Arts Festival.

This is a citywide event that uses the arts to remove the stigma associated with disabilities by celebrating those who have them.

This is the sixth year of the festival, which is made up of five days in which 17 short and feature-length films will be screened and discussed by the audience, filmmakers, parents, professionals and people with disabilities.

The subjects include a swim team made up of teens with autism, the only high school football team for deaf students, and program that allows prisoners to care for and train puppies as service dogs for injured ex-soldiers.

Blind Date features capable, bright people, whose stories of how they lost their sight varies. One lost it to an illness, another in a shooting while the third lost it due to a genetic disorder.

Many people with vision loss have difficulty accessing online dating technology as the sites expect clients to choose people they find attractive based on photographs. But the only information blind users get via their screen readers is a user name, age and where the potential date is from. The filmmaker hopes that Blind Date reminds viewers of the privilege that accessibility affords them.