Samuel Habib and his father, Dan, headed to Lincoln Center in New York last week, thinking they’d just have a fun night with their family and their filmmaking team.
Neither of them expected to take home another Emmy Award, this time for Best Social Issue Documentary. The Concord-based pair co-directed “The Ride Ahead: Love, Tattoos, and Other Disabled Things,” which follows Samuel as a young adult as he ponders romance, transitions to independent living, pursues an associate degree at NHTI and advocates for disability rights.
After watching one of the other nominated documentaries ahead of the ceremony, the Habibs figured they wouldn’t win this time around.
With the announcement of their latest achievement, the sheer joy on their faces was palpable as they took center stage. Dan held a microphone to Samuel’s communication device, grinning with pride.
“My goal for this film is to make sure other young adults with disabilities have the same opportunities that I have had for healthcare, inclusive education, college, assistive technology, making friends, and accessible housing,” 26-year-old Samuel said in his acceptance speech at the 47th News & Documentary Emmy Awards.
This is the second such accolade the father-son duo has won. Their short film, “My Disability Roadmap,” earned an Emmy in 2023. They hope the continued recognition will help make their feature film accessible to a broader audience. Currently, it can be streamed on PBS Passport and Kanopy, and after the Emmy nomination, it joined the lineup on Amazon Prime Video, Dan said.
“Just being nominated was a huge honor, especially in the category of social issue documentary,” he said. “When we won, Samuel and I both just looked at each other in shock, and then started racing down the aisle and out the door with our co-producer Erica Lupinacci to get to the stage. The ushers and staff were all congratulating us and clapping. The whole time we were just laughing and feeling the surprise and joy of the moment.”
“The Ride Ahead,” released in 2024, chronicles Samuel’s journey through conversations with mentors with disabilities. In his speech, Samuel dedicated this latest award to “the late disability rights badass” Judy Heumann, who he described as a “friend and mentor who told me to believe that the world can be a better place than it is and that I can make a difference.” Heumann, who passed away in 2023, is featured prominently in the film.
Just as Samuel and Dan got to travel throughout the process of making the film to meet with disability mentors, they have spent the past two years visiting different communities across the country for film screenings and disability rights education. This has been Samuel’s favorite part.
“Young people with disabilities say they see themselves in our film,” he said. “They’ve told me that they have the same questions as I do about dating, sex, moving out of their own family’s home, work and college. That means a lot to me. The film also shows how to communicate with people like me who have communication challenges: Be patient and do not talk down to me. Ask me how I best communicate.”
Both of the duo’s films will be made accessible for free to nonprofit summer camps and programs nationwide as part of a new initiative, Dan said.
“We hope this will create opportunities for young people with and without disabilities to have conversations about disability rights and human rights that are being sparked by the film. I’ve also organized a National Disability Leadership Series that kicked off this spring, training 107 people from 29 different states to be stronger disability leaders and advocates — and 65 of those people are young disabled adults,” he said.
When he’s not traveling to share the film with new audiences, Samuel works part-time at the Westchester Institute for Human Development and LikeRightNow Films. He previously spent a few years at NHTI and then at SNHU but has taken some time off from his studies to focus on his health and his film career. As the summer starts, he looks forward to resuming his summer job at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford.
Reflecting on the film’s success thus far, Samuel said he hopes his story will continue to touch people everywhere.
“We created this documentary and our impact campaign so that millions of young adults with disabilities will feel more seen and heard, and find their own mentors,” he said. “I just hope the Emmy recognition means more people will see the film.”
