Siân Heder's "Being Heumann" opened the 51st Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, marking the director's first project since "CODA," which won Apple Original Films its historic best picture Oscar. The film dramatises disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann's 28-day sit-in protest that helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it matters both as Apple's next likely awards contender and for its decision to cast actors with disabilities, including lead Ruth Madeley, in an industry that rarely does so.

Madeley, a British BAFTA nominee known for "Doctor Who" and "Don't Take My Baby," plays Heumann as flawed and forceful rather than saintly, in a production Heder described as aiming for "'Dog Day Afternoon' with disabled people." The screening included open captions, ASL interpreters and live captioning, and the cast featured disabled performers such as Michael Patrick Thornton, Russell Harvard, Daniel Durant and newcomer Charlie Rush-Reese, alongside Mark Ruffalo as a government official stalling the activists' demands. Backed by Apple's resources, the film recreates the activists' historic 28-day occupation of the San Francisco Federal Building—the longest such occupation in US history—before their fight moved to Washington, DC.