Daniel lives in a Utah cave and has not used money for 15 years. Laura Kay Prophet—aka the Duck Lady—is a street philanthropist and fortune teller in Vancouver who wheels her pet duck around in a buggy and gives out cookies to the homeless. These are just two of a tapestry of eccentrics and oddballs in Oscar-winning director Zaritsky's light-hearted but insightful look at people who have shrugged off conformity to become richer individuals. Inspired by psychologist David Week’s book Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness, Zaritsky’s film suggests that letting our freak flags fly and releasing our inner eccentrics could make us happier, healthier and live longer than those who try to pass as "normal."

A Different Drummer: Celebrating Eccentrics

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker John Zaritsky returns to the story that has fascinated and compelled him for years - thalidomide and it's effect on the survivors of "the worst drug disaster in history." In this, his third film on the subject, he reconnects with some of the thalidomide victims he originally profiled when they were young, and introduces us to some new people who have been active in the fight for justice. He also highlights some recently released information about German pharmaceutical giant Grünenthal, who aggressively marketed the drug, and are now selling it again under a different usage, but still with no compensation for those who's lives they affected so deeply. The indefatigable spirit of the extraordinary thalidomide victims is cast against the callousness disregard of the drug's manufacturers in a film that lays out the story from it's beginnings in the late 50s to the current state of affairs in the present day.  —Philip Webley