Pointing Fingers is the first commercial, full-length feature film written by, about, and starring people with minimally-speaking autism. A murder mystery flavored with romance and activism, Pointing Fingers meets this moment of expanding inclusivity with thrilling entertainment laced with social justice revelation and a deep look at the lives of people living with minimally-speaking autism.

Francis and Claire, a couple with minimally-speaking autism, take the bold step of living together with the help of their beloved communication aide, Daisy. When Daisy is murdered, Francis and Claire are wrongfully accused of the crime. Deprived of their ability to self-advocate, and treated as intellectually disabled, they must bring the real killer to justice in order to prove their innocence.

Amidst this chaos, they hire an unexpectedly adept but dangerous new communication partner, organize their families, and rally their fervent online fan base. Their love for one another not only endures but grows immensely through this conflict.

WHO WE ARE

“I want the most diverse cast and crew possible in POINTING FINGERS, and as many differently-abled actors as we can reasonably cast. This is because I want to evoke a world, aspirational at the moment but hopefully normal in the near future, in which very diverse people function together as if it’s perfectly normal to do so.” - Dan Bergmann

Dan Bergmann (he/him, Writer, Co-Director, Cast: Francis) is a playwright, poet, advocate, and activist who lives with minimally-speaking autism. He has been communicating by spelling words since July 7th, 2008, when he was twelve years old. He had the idea for Pointing Fingers in 2022 and co-wrote the screenplay with his father, Michael. Despite not being able to speak, he has, via-text-to-speech technology, addressed the team at Coursera, “spoken” at conferences for autistic spellers, participated in PennSound audio podcasts at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, given the undergraduate commencement address when he graduated from the Harvard Extension School, cum laude, phi beta in 2021, and recorded a talk called “The End of Intellectual Disability? Lessons from Nonspeaking Autism” for the Harvard Extension School Alumni Association.

Michael Bergmann (he/him, Director, Co-Writer, Producer) is a prizewinning writer and director whose movies and other works are each one-of-a-kind. His works include feature films, web series, theater, opera, and a narrative mobile game about psychoanalysis. Michael is honored to be working with NewYorkRep again, which produced his feature Influence in 2014. When not making movies, he collaborates with his wife Meredith Bergmann as project manager on her major works of public art and works as one of his son Dan’s principal communication partners. Over the last ten years he has learned a great deal about minimally-speaking autism from working with Dan. Having collaborated with his own father on a book about Shakespeare’s sonnets, he is delighted to be working on Pointing Fingers, for which he has adapted the best ways of working with actors to make it possible for minimal speakers with autism to express themselves in a scripted feature film.

Pointing Fingers

The first-ever fiction feature film about, written by, and starring people with nonspeaking autism.

Team Members