Natural Disorder

Jacob Nossell is a 27-year-old journalism student with a normal intellect but an impaired body. He has cerebral palsy, which means he has difficulty talking and moving, and he suffers from muscle cramps and stiffness. Mentally, he’s on par with his fellow students, and that’s the crux of the matter. He’s too disabled for society to accept him as normal, but too normal to simply lie down and accept his fate. And what exactly is “normal” anyway? follows Jacob directing a play for the Royal Danish Theater, in which he explores the meaning of identity and normality and asks what life is all about. He goes out on the streets with a camera and microphone, stopping people to ask what they consider normal. He talks with a doctor of philosophy and neuroscience and gets his brain and his DNA scanned. Producing the play takes its toll on Jacob, and he often comes face to face with his own limitations. This is very hard on him – for 27 years he has been struggling against those limitations, and his greatest and most constant fear is that he might turn out to be that disabled person he so wants to avoid becoming.