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Nix Your Tics!

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Life's A Twitch! Celebrating 15 years.
1998 - 2018
Life's A Twitch! Celebrating 15 years.

 

The Twitch Team

The Twitch Team --
Tina Hahn (producer); B. Duncan McKinlay (subject); Cindy Bisaillon (director).


From The Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Cambridge Reporter:

SummerLife, 2002

Friday, June 21, 2002 – Print Edition, Page 8

Tonight's lead documentary is riveting. It's about Tourette's Syndrome, a condition that makes people like Duncan McKinlay bark, whistle, or twitch in public, especially when they're stressed, which tends to be most of the time. But Duncan is a match for Tourette's, and then some. He's earned himself a PhD on the subject and has become an authority on his own tics. He has helped himself get better and calmer by giving into the tics, and has channeled his energy into a positive force of public education.

In Life's A Twitch, director Cindy Bisaillon and producer Tina Hahn have crafted a fine profile of the PhD recipient. Their film has already garnered much praise: it was recently nominated for Best Educational/Instructional Film at the Yorkton Golden Sheaf Awards; the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada has asked the filmmakers to produce a series of PSAs for an upcoming awareness campaign; and Duncan McKinlay was recently a guest of The Montel Williams Show on CFMT.


From The Globe and Mail:

The Short List

By HENRIETTA WALMARK

Saturday, June 22, 2002 – Print Edition, Page 3

"The View From Here", The Al Waxman Calling Card Program, TVO, 10 p.m. Here's another opportunity to catch the work of emerging Canadian filmmakers as three short films, Life's A Twitch, I Spy and Blind Spot, premiere tonight on The View From Here. Tourette's syndrome is what makes life a twitch for Duncan McKinlay. The PhD student's lifelong project has been to understand his condition and to educate others about Tourette's. As the camera follows him during the days leading up to his dissertation, McKinlay keeps his cacophony of ticks under control by not resisting them and with his sense of humour. Director Cindy Bisaillon does a good job of letting McKinlay shine.


From Starweek:

Short Subjects

By GEOFF PEVERE

Saturday, June 22, 2002 – Page 59

The three short documentaries on tonight's "The View From Here" are the products of insitutional largesse. Submitted to TVO's Al Waxman Calling Card Program for emerging documentary filmmakers, these films were licensed by the network following a juried selection of the most promising projects.

In this context, the films reveal more than the emerging talents of their filmmakers. They also reveal TVO's idea of worthy documentary projects and worthy emerging documentary filmmakers. Watching the program -- which tends toward conventional TV subject and style -- you might want to bear this in mind.

  • Life's A Twitch: This portrait of Duncan McKinlay, who is both an affably witty expert on Tourette's syndrome and a sufferer of it, is a sure-fire slice of non-fiction inspirational feelgood.

    Following the socially fearless McKinlay -- who has learned to make public sport of his various tics, snorts and twitches -- as he prepares for his Ph.D. defense (on Tourette's) and as he recalls his painful small-town childhood, Cindy Bisaillon's film is a particularly successful example of the inspirational disability documentary because the subject himself is so unguardedly captivating. With McKinlay, it can't lose.

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Last updated on March 25, 2022

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