When celebrated lawyer and noted disability rights advocate David Lepofsky made this announcement to our crowded bus in the Spring of 2024, I had no idea that David would eventually fundamentally change the way I see filmmaking and accessibility.

As much as I had considered how to reach audiences of different ideological backgrounds with our film HOLDING LIAT, on the afternoon of March 7th, 2024, when I grabbed a seat on the bus next to David, I realized that I had not given nearly enough thought to how we would reach disabled audiences.

David is blind and has spent his lifetime as an accessibility advocate and activist. For David, accessibility is an invitation and a way-of-life, not a legal obligation. I am ashamed to say that for me, I had previously thought of accessibility features such as audio description more so as well-intentioned optional technical requirements in a list of “deliverables,” rather than a core part of our storytelling process and how we form our relationship with the viewer.

David and I met as part of a group of 75 participants on a trip called “Kaleidoscope.” The program is designed to introduce people of all kinds of professions and disciplines to a multitude of Israeli and Palestinian perspectives and offer an opportunity for participants to directly confront questions about Israel/Palestine together in person. I was invited to speak to the group about our experiences making Holding Liat — then at a very early point in production — and our vision for sharing the story of the Beinin-Atzili family with a polarized world.

As the bus rolled toward “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv, David and I talked about Holding Liat, and accessibility requirements got more personal. David was fascinated by the premise of the film, but wanted to know if he would be able to experience it once the film was completed. David asked if it would have audio description (commonly known as “AD”). I was embarrassed to confess to David that I had never created audio descriptions for any of our prior films.

Despite having no experience with AD, on the spot I committed to David that we would create audio descriptions for the then-unfinished film.

In Hostage Square, David held my elbow and walked through protest signs, photographs, and an art installation that resembled one of the Hamas tunnels used on October 7. I described what I saw, provided guidance to navigate the tight space, and answered David’s questions. On my own, I might have looked around more quickly or focused my experience on taking photos on my phone. My mind likely would have drifted. But being David’s live audio describer that afternoon made the experience more visceral. It brought me fully into the present moment. Audio description enlivened both of our experiences.

Our documentary Holding Liat was always intended to be an observational film. With intimate access to our relatives in a moment of crisis, the most profound moments unfolding in front of our camera were often nonverbal, like the facial expression of a daughter listening to her father’s frustration, or the glance out a window during a particularly tense moment between a grandfather and grandson.

After returning back to Washington, DC and diving deep into the editorial process, Brandon and I realized our film wouldn’t be available to David and other blind audience members in a meaningful way if they couldn’t feel the subtle emotional energy unfolding without words within these scenes.

When it came time to start making good on our commitment to create audio description, we consulted with our post-production producer James Doolittle about how to create a nuanced AD track to create an experience for a blind viewer that matches the sighted experience of the film’s embedded nuances. We were fortunate that James connected with Cheryl Green and her team at the Social Audio Description Collective, a brilliant and talented group of people who applied exceptional artistry and care toward creating audio description and captions for the film. We ensured that our theatrical DCPs for the film included the full accessibility package whenever the film was sent to festivals and theaters.

And when we began virtual screenings this summer, we were thrilled to use , which offers viewers the option to watch the film with audio description and captions (major praise to filmmaker and for their pioneering work on their film LIFE AFTER and their efforts to advocate for inclusion of audio description on Kinema and elsewhere). We were deeply inspired by their work and lessons shared in this new case study by .

While this may have been the first audio description process I ever experienced, I am absolutely confident it will not be the last: accessibility will be fully woven into our creative and release process forever more. I still have a lot to learn myself, and I feel a strong responsibility to encourage others in the field to join in this essential effort.

by Cheryl Green
Audio Description Writer & Narrator

A lot of mainstream industry AD can be scanty, trying to focus only on the literal details the AD writer deems as crucial to following the plot. When AD is too sparse, a described film may be technically “accessible,” but can also lose the artistic craft of the documentary as the filmmaker had intended. There is an art to the subjective way that an AD writer conveys the complexity of what appears onscreen in a relatively terse amount of words while still maintaining the film’s creative expression.

I was fortunate that Lance, Brandon and James connected with me to write and narrate the AD for Holding Liat, produced as part of the Social Audio Description Collective, a group oriented toward customized, culturally responsive AD for indie film productions.

I believe all documentaries should have detailed audio description. There are a few reasons Holding Liat needed it in particular. In the film, we witness over the course of 54 days, how Liat Atzili’s family navigates the emotional intensity of her captivity, as they must confront each other’s divergent responses to the situation. Most of the film takes place in quiet and intimate spaces - bedrooms, hotel rooms, family dinner tables. The sound designer’s beautifully restrained, light touch intentionally does not provide many overt audio cues about what is happening onscreen. The silence is a character in the film.

Unlike a more didactic, traditional documentary, the film does not have a narrator guiding the audience through facts and figures, or even people saying, “Hello, Liat” so that it is clear who is speaking on screen. Holding Liat is a verité documentary in the best possible way. The film’s observational qualities bring us close to each person in the family and give us an opportunity to know them with surprising depth. Much of the story is told through observational shots of people deep in thought, where the direction of a glance, or the way that one person grips another’s lapel, can drive the narrative forward. There is a lot of dialogue, sometimes heated, but the moments between words often conveys just as much, if not more. Because the film follows an Israeli-American family whose conversations with each other rapidly alternate between both languages, there is a fair amount of Hebrew subtitled in English. All of these factors presented a significant but important challenge for creating audio description that did justice to the filmmaking and offered a deeply meaningful viewing experience for blind viewers like David to engage with the film’s nuances.

I did not want to be formal and impersonal in my writing or my narration for such an intimate film. And I didn’t want to constrain the AD to only the most crucial plot points. The film is lush with subtle, poetic moments. The Kramers included a shot of a bird perched atop the fence between Israel and Gaza, which stayed on screen about as long as shots of grieving family members embracing or views into charred kibbutz homes.

The bird may not directly further the narrative, but I wanted to describe the artistic and metaphoric visuals, not just the journalistic and observational ones. Immersion was my goal, not legal compliance or didactic adherence. When it came to subtitles, our audio description narrators recorded all of the subtitles, not as a dub, but so that the voices in Hebrew play softly below. Without subtitles readers on the AD track, the subtitles might as well not exist.

Nearly two years after Lance and David met on the bus, David finally had a chance to watch the film with AD. David left Lance this voicemail after watching:

“The audio description was very much about a human narrative, not something cold and clinical, and neither aloof nor melodramatic. The AD brought me into the film.”

Just as Holding Liat’s AD was initially proposed by a blind Jewish film lover, producing it was also a blind-centered, culturally-driven process. I am Jewish, and a Jewish AD colleague edited my script. A blind quality control specialist reviewed the script to ensure the descriptions were clear, but detailed and inviting. Lance and Brandon then revised the script further for accuracy and clarity.

AD is legally required in some cases, but it’s still not nearly as universal as captions. Nevertheless, David says:

“We need more of this. And the more people do this and build it in, the better.”

Thomas Reid, a Blind AD colleague who edited and mixed the AD for this film, likes to say that AD is about more than access or entertainment: It’s about relationships. On the tour in 2024, access was not framed as a burden, an unfair extra, or an obligation to avoid a lawsuit. David reflected that audio description was a gift, something that brought them into a deeper appreciation of the memorial they visited together and each other, and ultimately, into understanding the responsibility it would take to carefully and thoughtfully portray the Beinin-Atzili family in Holding Liat.

–

Cheryl Green is a chronically ill, disabled access artist focused on creative captions and audio description for independent films and museums. She was a 2020 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader and 2023 Rockwood Documentary Leaders Fellow and is a Member at New Day Films with her documentary Who Am I To Stop It.

David Lepofsky is Chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and visiting professor of disability rights at the law faculties of Queen’s University, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Ottawa.

Lance Kramer is a DC-based filmmaker and co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures. Lance produced HOLDING LIAT (Berlinale Documentary Award Winner, 2026 Oscars Shortlist); THE FIRST STEP (Tribeca, AFI DOCS); CITY OF TREES (Full Frame, PBS, Netflix); and the Webby Award-winning documentary series THE MESSY TRUTH.

Holding Liat is available with English closed captions and English audio description on Kinema. Learn more about the film: MeridianHillPictures.com/HoldingLiat

HOLDING LIAT is our first film to have international distribution. In Japan, the film was acquired by United People (PUT YOUR SOUL IN YOUR HAND AND WALK). When I was first invited to the film’s theatrical opening in Tokyo by Kenji Sekine, the director of United People, I’m ashamed to say that I hesitated. I had just spent the past year traveling nonstop to almost 100 screenings. I was past my limit of fatigue and I questioned the limitations of bringing our film to a country that seemed so removed from the story we told.

These are precisely the kinds of moments where my partnership with Lance becomes critical. Lance empathized with my concerns, but gently encouraged me to talk with the distributor. I got on the phone with Kenji and was immediately convinced:

“Your film is about humanity. We all tend to categorize people whether they are Israeli, Palestinian, Japanese, or Chinese. But before that, we are all human beings. Liat went through a tragedy, but she chose not to hate. She chose coexistence instead. I want to share her spirit with audiences in Japan.”

I quickly rolled my suitcase out of the closet and booked my flight.

Challenging assumptions

Over the course of one week this spring, I did 15 interviews with print, TV and radio journalists in Tokyo, participated in the opening weekend Q+A’s at the Forum Theater, and gave a guest presentation at the University of Tokyo for students.

Japanese audiences have a humbling tradition of lining up after each Q&A to meet the director and sign a commemorative booklet created for the release (the commentary in our booklet was written by acclaimed documentarian Kazuhiro Soda). With a translator by my side, this tradition created space for dozens of one-on-one conversations with audiences. In those lines, audiences shared reflections that stopped me in my tracks:

“Who are the people on the other side of the fence to us living in Japan? The message that really came across was the importance of truly thinking about the other person, and in doing so, reflecting on ourselves and who we are.”

“Ideologies can prevent us from seeing humanity. Thank you for reminding us that this is not the trap we want to fall into.”

“We often commit the sin of indifference in our peaceful daily life. But we should know…we should try to understand.”

Almost immediately, I felt the depth of our film’s themes resonating with audiences — in particular around empathy, reconciliation and resistance to war — in the context of Japan’s own experiences and history. I started to confront the deep flaws of my assumption that a country on the other side of the world might somehow have a less personal reaction to our film.

Profound Openness

As I listened to dozens of people’s responses to our film in Japan, I noticed something different. In many of the other communities where we shared the film, I observed our film contributing to an existing ecology of narratives surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, often intersecting with views that people had already formed, and in some cases cemented. For a year I witnessed how our film’s power in these contexts came from its ability to bring people with deeply held beliefs into the same space, to watch the same movie, have a shared experience, and connect in real-time afterwards to constructively navigate their divergent perspectives with respect.

In Japan, the existing narrative ecosystem around Israel-Palestine felt more limited and less polarized. With a Jewish population of under .01% (and even fewer Israelis and Palestinians), I realized I was bringing a story into a country with less direct proximity and exposure to this conflict. One journalist named this directly:

“We don’t get many stories about the lived experience of Israelis or Palestinians here. People here often feel far away from what’s happening in the Middle East.”

Another journalist shared how the film’s intimacy provided her a deeply needed connection to a conflict she had been engaging with from a distance:

“I work as a reporter in the international news section, and I spend my days covering the casualties and destruction caused by war. Over time, I have sometimes felt that the actual people behind those numbers start to fade from view. That feeling is something I find both shameful and, honestly, a little frightening.”

Across most of my conversations with journalists, audiences and students, I felt a profound openness. Audiences in Tokyo seemed to arrive at our screening from a place of genuine curiosity, rather than an armored place prepared to defend their own views against what they saw onscreen. Over the past year I had grown accustomed to every screening eliciting some degree of hardened responses, and I had grown practiced at navigating tough conversations in all forms.

It was a new experience for me to talk with so many people who seemed to be fully receptive, open and still forming their views about this conflict after watching the film.

The absence of tension

Without the presence of heated conversations, something at first felt wrong. The theater was quiet. I worried that perhaps the film wasn’t “landing.” I had come to expect tension after a screening as normal and productive.

I came to realize that a core part of this absence of tension likely stems from the deep respect exhibited to guests and art in Japanese culture —and the harmony in the way people in Japan communicate. But part of the response also seemed to come from the expansive sensation of discovery and connection. For audiences in Japan who initially encountered the film with more physical and emotional distance from the contours of this particular conflict, the absence of debate was likely an expression of people who felt deep resonance with the film’s themes and were processing in real time.

And it occurred to me that I was doing my own processing in real time. A week later I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and I began to better understand the profound depth of antiwar sentiment in Japan. The horrors of the past, and the threats of the future, seemed to create alignments for Japanese audiences with Liat’s experience. In particular, it struck me that Liat’s turn toward peace and reconciliation in the aftermath of her own loss was inextricably linked with Japan’s tragic history and profound journey towards peace and nuclear non-proliferation.

Unexpected healing

The depth and openness of these responses to the film, and the experiences visiting memorials and shrines in Japan, unexpectedly left me with an emotional and psychological release. I began to take full breaths in between my sentences. I could listen to others with more presence. I started to communicate with a level of calm that had been nearly impossible for me to fully achieve over the past year. The absence of tension in the room allowed me to feel how deeply the repeated exposure to people experiencing pain and trauma had affected me over the past two and half years making and releasing this film.

In all the work I had done over the past year reaching core audiences with direct connections to the story we told, I seemed to have forgotten the importance of reaching audiences who may be removed from a story geographically and culturally, but are deeply connected emotionally and spiritually.

A film’s ability to jump borders and hit transcendent chords reminded me why I became a filmmaker in the first place.

As we continue with the work of bringing HOLDING LIAT into the world, I am forever grateful to the audiences in Japan for the way they responded to the film, the warmth and grace they showed me as a visiting artist, and the unexpected healing and vitality it brought to my life.

Learn more about HOLDING LIAT:

• United People (Japanese distributor)

• Book HOLDING LIAT on Kinema

• HOLDING LIAT official website

We are two brothers from Washington, DC. We have made films together “unofficially” for over 30 years since we were little kids playing with our parents' over-the-shoulder VHS camcorder. We have made films together more “formally” for the past 16 years, since starting Meridian Hill Pictures in 2010.

Our three independent feature films — CITY OF TREES (2015), THE FIRST STEP (2021), and most recently, HOLDING LIAT (2025) — each tells a very different story. What they all share in common is an exploration of the complex personal experiences and relationships between people directly impacted by pressing issues of our times. Each film is rooted in an attempt to better understand our shared humanity amidst the contradictions, polarization and emotional turmoil of the world we are living in. Never easy or straightforward to make, we developed each film from the ground-up, figured out how to make them independently (or as Ted Hope says, through a NonDē approach), and released each through self-distribution or hybrid-distribution models.

Through each film, we have navigated countless ethical dilemmas, built relationships with our protagonists rooted in mutual trust and honesty, developed a deep understanding of narrative craft in production and post, and built new systems to tackle the logistical, political, financial, technical and legal hurdles that arise when making these kinds of films. We’ve had the privilege of learning much of what we know from collaborating with some of the most talented, thoughtful and compassionate filmmakers in our field. We have always strived to push our films to the best of our abilities, and placed each film’s impact in the world as a driving force behind our work. We are particularly passionate about bringing together people and communities with divergent ideologies around our films — with the belief that this kind of storytelling can open deeply needed spaces for dialogue and engagement across lines of difference.

The past two decades have also been an intense roller coaster, filled with more highs and lows than we can count. These experiences have left us with more questions than answers.

The two of us are big on reflecting. It’s a core part of our process, and the way we often navigate our emotions and identities. While we have had countless private conversations unpacking experiences with each other and with mentors and friends over the years, we often don’t get the space to share and take stock of all the stories and discoveries collected along the way. That’s where this Substack comes into play.

We hope to use this as a space to process together, our creative, ethical, and personal journey as filmmakers and brothers navigating the world with our work. We are excited to share candid experiences and hope they can offer some new insights. If nothing else, we hope to use this space to connect with people we love, and continue a lifelong practice of discussing, learning, and growing together.

- Brandon & Lance