Episode 16: The Reason I Jump with Jerry Rothwell and Jeremy Dear

In this episode, we feature a conversation with Director Jerry Rothwell and Producer Jeremy Dear about the film THE REASON I JUMP (2020). Based on the best-selling book by Naoki Higashida, the film is an immersive cinematic exploration of neurodiversity through the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people. The film blends Higashida’s revelatory insights into autism, written when he was 13, with intimate portraits of five remarkable young people. It opens a window for audiences into an intense, overwhelming, but often joyful sensory universe.

THE REASON I JUMP is the winner of the World Cinema Documentary Competition Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Aylin Gökmen moderates the conversation.

Please consider subscribing to Docs in Orbit on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR / JERRY ROTHWELL

Jerry Rothwell is a filmmaker whose work includes the award-winning feature documentaries:  The Reason I Jump, based on the bestselling book by Naoki Higashida; How To Change The World,  about the founders of Greenpeace; Sour Grapes (co-directed with Reuben Atlas), a film about a wine counterfeiter Town of Runners, about two girls in an Ethiopian village who aspire to be athletes; Donor Unknown, about a sperm donor and his many offspring; School In The Cloud,  about radical educationalist, Sugata Mitra; Heavy Load, about a group of people with learning disabilities who form a punk band, and Deep Water (co-directed with Louise Osmond), about  Donald Crowhurst’s ill-fated voyage in 1968 round the world yacht race. His work has won numerous accolades, including two Grierson Awards, a Sundance Special Jury Prize, an RTS Award,  the IDA Pare Lorentz Award, and a BAFTA nomination. 

ABOUT THE PRODUCER / JEREMY DEAR

Jeremy started his career at the BBC in documentaries. He has created dozens of factual shows for a wide range of networks on both sides of the Atlantic, including the BBC, Netflix, Discovery,  Nat Geo, Science Channel, PBS, History, Channel 4, SKY, and many others. Past work includes the  Emmy-nominated Wave that Shook the World (WGBH/C4), Growing Children (BBC), Lawless  Oceans and In the Womb (National Geographic), and the controversial Christianity: A History (C4). He is now the Director of International Programming at Wall to Wall Media in the UK. He is married to co-producer Stevie Lee; the couple has a nonverbal autistic son, Joss, one of the film’s contributors who spends much time on their large trampoline.