Austin Shinn (Editor-In-Chief)
I’m Austin Shinn. Film is my escape. It has been from the time I was a kid going to the dollar theater on the weekends to my current adult status watching films with my daughter. I’m never as at peace as I am watching a good film. Or even a bad one. My mental health story is a long one. I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at 13. I’ve battled severe anxiety and depression pretty much my whole life. Movies have been my way of getting through those patches. Despite my issues, I’ve achieved a lot. I’m a father to a beautiful little girl. I’m a husband. I’m an accomplished employee of 10 years at my job. I’m a podcaster at The Film Room. I’m a writer, having published my memoir in 2016. I’m a jack of all trades.
Jaime Rebanal (Editor-at-Large, Founder, Site Developer)
I’m Jaime Rebanal. I founded this site back in 2018, repurposing it from an old blog that I started up in the hopes that we could turn it into a much bigger platform. And look where we are now. I didn’t find out about my autism diagnosis until I was about to enter high school, but I think that it set off a little spark within me. I knew where my interests were being focused by that point, and I decided to turn this old blog into a platform for other autistic writers.
Nathan Sherwood
I’m Nathan. Part-time meme maker, SpongeBob enthusiast and film lover. I was first diagnosed with high functioning autism when I was 5 years old, and at a young age have always loved movies. Fun fact: Summer of ‘09 I remember watching around 60 movies.
Growing up with DVDs, I was always fond of the special features section and the behind the scenes looked at how they made the movie. The one film that helped made me want to get into film school and study film was Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. It was a visual treat and ranked among my all-time favourite movies, including Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2.
I hope to provide good insight on the movies I review and if you want me to do a scene by scene retelling of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, I will gladly summarize the entire movie while shedding a tear during the sad goofy goober rendition.
Connor Walsh
I’m Connor. My life has always revolved around art—films especially. I see them as crucial reflections of the world we live in, as universal truths. Films have allowed me to become more open in the perspectives I see around me–as they reflect situations I have been in and cultures outside my background. Art has enriched my life.
I found out I was autistic only recently at the age of 30. With this diagnosis, I hope to become a public figure that those on the spectrum can look towards.
As for my writing? I have been featured on sites such as Dread Central, Film Cred, Next Best Picture and published within Layered Butter’s Seventh Volume themed around the work of Stanley Kubrick.
Where my writing takes me, I don’t know? But I hope to create some works of my own, or at least contribute towards others in a creative capacity. I look forward to introducing myself to you through Cinema from The Spectrum and beyond.
Jack Cox
I’m Jack Cox. I’m a writer and film enthusiast living in Toronto, Ontario.
I was born in New York City in 1987, but I grew up in Oakville after my family moved to Canada in the early ’90s. I’ve been obsessed with stories—especially the kind told through film—for as long as I can remember. Movies were my escape, my inspiration, and eventually, the lens through which I started to understand the world. I’ve been living in Toronto since 2013, writing and reflecting and watching more films than I probably should. Some of my favourite directors are Akira Kurosawa, Paul Schrader, David Lynch, and Wong Kar-wai.
Bode Sulaiman
Like the great game designer Hideo Kojima, I like to think that (at least) 70% of my body is made out of art – films, especially. It’s been that way since I was a child, when my first exposure to Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra Terrestrial sparked a love and a fascination for the medium that continues to this day. It’s to the point where voicing my opinions on it – from the good to the bad, the old to the new – is almost second-nature to me.
It’s how I’ve been able to make sense of my place in the world, especially as someone with ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) – which I was diagnosed with as a child. For a long time, I found it hard to talk about with others, sometimes out of shame. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve been open about it – if only to give a sense of what living with it is like (spoiler alert: it has its issues).
In addition to Cinema from the Spectrum (where I feel lucky to contribute some of my musings to), you can also find me on Bitesize Breakdown, a global and diverse collective of writers who review the latest films and TV shows at around 100 words. I also have a Letterboxd, but that’s probably obvious by now.
Mercedes May
Hi! I’m Mercedes. I’m sixteen, but was diagnosed with autism at 10. As a child, I had always expressed myself through media, whether that be books, television, or, more recently, film. As I was growing up, I didn’t really watch that many films at all. I was full of energy and enthusiasm and I did not have the patience to sit through something that long. It wasn’t until the summer of 2016 when I started binging 1980s movies that I truly became interested in film. In 2017, I started a Letterboxd account, and from then, on a passion grew. I began watching anything I could get my hands on, my goal: learning as much about film as I could. My tastes are constantly changing, but at the moment I’m mainly interested in Old Hollywood and I rarely watch new releases unless they peak my interests. I’m particularly fond of musicals, and I do like mysteries as well. You can find my Letterboxd here.
Chuck Winters
I’m Chuck Winters, and for now, I’m camera-shy. Sorry about that. Throughout my childhood and most of my adulthood, I was classified as “emotionally disabled” as a form of miscellaneous special needs diagnosis because we couldn’t figure out what was going on with me, and we still wouldn’t have the faintest clue until a couple of years after I graduated college when my mother and I learned about Asperger Syndrome, a term which has since fallen out of use. Even then, it took ten years of being lost in the metaphorical woods before I could get an official diagnosis. It goes without saying, then, that I’m a strong believer in Autism Awareness; powerful misconceptions about the disorder literally worked against me as a child. It’s that belief in Autism Awareness that led me here. Growing up, movies were the only things that made sense to me; I loved sitting in a dark theater with my father and bonding with him over a good story. Some of my most important milestones came from movies; the first time I heard my dad swear, for instance, was during Dominic Sena’s remake of Gone in 60 Seconds, screaming “HOLY SHIT” after Nicolas Cage ramped over a traffic jam in his Mustang. I love movies, and I went to film school hoping to learn how to make movies of my own. It didn’t quite work out that way, but I came out of it with a deeper appreciation of the artform. And in a world full of negativity, it makes me happy to tell you about the stories I’m passionate about and what makes them work so well.
Cinema from the Spectrum 
You must be logged in to post a comment.