Ad Age is marking Disability Pride Month 2023 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package, in which members of the disability community revisit some of their favorite creative projects. (Read the introduction here.) Today, filmmaker Sheridan O’Donnell writes about shooting “Little Brother,” his feature debut.

I was sitting at the bottom of a staircase in an old two-story house with my director’s monitor around my neck. It was the last day of shooting on “Little Brother,” my feature debut. Although my peripheral vision—which I’d describe as colorful, flickering snow—was diminished, I had a clear central vision and could make out the screen and who was on it: Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons, complete with his intense, blue-eyed gaze.

Even though we’d already been shooting for four weeks, the sight of a movie star on my monitor saying words I wrote somehow made it real to me. I had made a movie. I took out my phone, furtively snapped a photo and sent it to my siblings. My older sister responded immediately, “I’m so proud of you, Sher. I’m crying.” Her words moved me, but I had no time to relish them. I had a scene to direct. I took a deep breath, assumed my role as director, and called, “Action.”

Just over a year and a half before that day in Montclair, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare, degenerative eye condition that slowly leads to legal blindness. I spent those first hard months considering the creative avenues society deemed permissible for blind people. There are blind musicians—Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles. There are blind writers—John Milton wrote “Paradise Lost” blind. But I was a filmmaker. There was little to no precedent and a million reasons to quit.

And yet still, I couldn’t. I got back into “Little Brother” and came together with an incredible group of artists to manifest it. We recently premiered and won the Audience Award at the Atlanta Film Festival.

If you’d asked me back then why I didn’t quit after my diagnosis, I’m not sure I’d fully know. But my answer today sounds a lot like Kathryn Bigelow’s thoughts on female filmmakers: “If there’s a specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender and I refuse to stop making movies.”

Yes, I’m legally blind. Yes, I’m a filmmaker. And I refuse to stop.

This year I’m directing a feature documentary about the global disability revolution, and I’m writing a new film that features a blind lead character. I know the words ‘disability pride’ may seem counterintuitive to some, but I hope through the patchwork of our stories you realize disability is a culture and an identity, not a deficit.

In a way, it’s a paradox to be disabled. Because we are more than our conditions, diseases and bodies, and yet our disabilities are fundamental to who we are. They’re often additive—they give us purpose, empathy and insight. And if you believe these things, as I so passionately do, you’ll begin to see my disability in a new way: as a creative point of view. A unique lens worth looking through. One that can see stories that have never been told.