The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks

Director and Producer Dempsey Rice, Producer Lori Cheatle

A newly discovered archive of personal audio/video combines with immersive animation to reveal the early professional life of Jewish neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks before he became famous. We experience his work with patients alongside his own struggles as he lays the groundwork for the modern neurodiversity movement.

Dempsey Rice

Director, Producer

Dempsey Rice explores themes of connection, personal story, relationship, and identity in her filmmaking. She believes that exploring pivotal moments in an individual’s life can speak to our universal human experience. Her current film, The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks, is one of 24 films selected for the Nonfiction Hotlist. Her film Daughter of Suicide (HBO) received a Cine Golden Eagle, a National Council on Family Relations Media Award and a National Mental Health Association Media Award. She is the recipient of a NY Emmy for Outstanding Teen Programming and an Aurora Gold Award for Youth Documentary as the Series Producer of IMNY (I Am New York). She was a Fellow at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP (2015-2016) where she launched The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks. Her hyper-local project, The Listening Project: Brooklyn (133 short films) aired on Brooklyn Independent Television.

Lori Cheatle

Producer

Lori Cheatle is the founder of Hard Working Movies and has been the producer or executive producer of over 25 award-winning feature documentaries. Her films have screened at all the top international film festivals, in theaters and on broadcast and streaming platforms worldwide. Titles include the 2024 Peabody award winner Night Is Not Eternal (HBO, dir. Nanfu Wang); Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. which won a Special Jury Award at Sundance and the IDA Award for Best Music Documentary; Dreaming Walls, executive produced by Martin Scorsese (Berlinale, Magnolia Pictures/Hulu); Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, directed by Jeremiah Zagar (Sundance, HBO/Sky Atlantic); 51 Birch Street (HBO), which won numerous awards and was named one of the 10 Best Films of the Year by The New York Times; the BAFTA nominated Seven Songs for a Long Life (POV, BBC); and many others. She received the Sundance Amazon Producer Award.