Documentary ‘Understanding Autism’ made by Autistic

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An upcoming documentary on autistic people features Minnesota’s own Lionsgate Academy and its families.

The film is by Scott Steindorff, a Minnesota native. He is also an autistic person and tells his story along with others through his own lens.

Diane Restorff retired from her executive director position, but before her retirement from Lionsgate Academy, she decided to let Steindorff and his crew into the school, which is a public charter school providing free education to autistic students.

“The representation that people with autism are getting through this documentary is first class,” she said.

Creech Unger, 16, was featured in the documentary, who wanted to be a part of the film because he is passionate about teaching people about autism.

“It touches on the struggles,” he said. “But it doesn't have like the whole, you know, oh my God, my kid has autism. It's so hard. Everything's so hard. It sucks so much. It accepts autism and talks about it, instead of making it seem like it's this big, terrifying thing.”

Unger said too often people have a misunderstanding of autism. He lived through it when he went to a different school.

“It was really hard for me make friends because I felt like I was doing something wrong being me,” said Creech. “So I kept having to try different ways of being not me. And none of them were working. And I was just kind of accepting that I'm the weird kid that nobody wants to be friends with. But then I came here, and everybody is accepting of me as me.”

The film will premiere nationwide April 14.