‘Being Heumann’ teaser: Ruth Madeley leads Siân Heder’s disability rights drama with Mark Ruffalo

A still from ‘Being Heumann’ | Photo Credit: Apple TV The first teaser for Being Heumann has been released, giving a first look at Ruth Madeley as pioneering disability rights activist Judy Heumann. Directed by Siân Heder in her first feature since the Oscar-winning CODA, the Apple Original Film centres on Heumann’s leadership during a landmark protest that helped force the US government to implement disability rights protections.The film is set primarily around the 1977 Section 504 sit-in at the San Francisco Federal Building. Heumann joined hundreds of disabled activists who occupied the building for 28 days, demanding that the government implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities in federally funded programmes. The protest became the longest occupation of a U.S. federal building in American history.Madeley plays Heumann, who contracted polio as a toddler and went on to become one of the most influential figures in the American disability rights movement. The teaser follows her as she attempts to get government officials to respond to the activists’ demands before the campaign escalates into a mass occupation.Mark Ruffalo plays Joseph Califano Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter who became a key figure in the activists’ campaign. Dylan O’Brien, Rob Delaney, Ray Fisher, Michael Patrick Thornton, Madeline Delp and Daniel Durant also feature in the ensemble.Heder co-wrote the screenplay with Rebekah Taussig, adapting Heumann’s memoir Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. The film also draws on Heumann’s wider legacy, which was previously documented in the Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.Being Heumann will open the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival on September 10. The film opens in select U.S. theatres on November 6 before streaming globally on Apple TV from November 13. Published - September 03, 2026 01:50 pm IST