While working as a paramedic in 2009, Shawn Cheshire, a 36-year-old Army veteran and single mother of two, suffered a brain injury that left her without sight. Spiraling into a debilitating suicidal depression, Shawn sought treatment at a VA hospital where, through a combination of adaptive sports and treatment for Complex PTSD, she chose to rebuild her life while facing painful memories of the past for the first time. Within three years Shawn was competing at the 2016 Paralympic games in Rio and goes on to become a 13-time paracycling US National Champion, as well as world-record holder of the Grand Canyon crossing by a blind person.
Driven as much by the determination to live independently as by the restlessness and vulnerability borne of trauma, in 2021 Shawn embarks on an historic and perilous adventure of riding a single bike across the United States. As Shawn pedals east, her history and rich, introspective emotional life are revealed through the film’s use of animation, excerpts from her journal entries, interviews, therapy sessions and archival footage. Together, these elements give depth and texture to Shawn’s long road to healing and place the traumatic brain injury she endured in the context of a lifetime of pain and loss.
Blending poetic cinematography and intimate verité with immersive POV animation and sound design that brings the viewer inside her world, Blind AF is at once a thrilling epic of athletic achievement and a transformative portrait of emotional resilience and bravery. As a sighted woman, Shawn lived trapped by the abusive behaviors of others; in her blindness she finds her strength, courage and authentic self to live life freely and honestly, undefined and undeterred by limits and labels imposed by the people and culture around her.
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