In tough times it’s hard to think of many people facing more challenges than Joanne O’Riordan. She is one of a handful of people in the world born with no arms and no legs as a result of a rare syndrome called ‘Total Amelia’.
This intimate family portrait, directed by her brother Steven, documents a life lived without limbs but, more than that, it’s a warm character study of a very special individual. As Joanne bravely faces her battles, we realise it is not her disability that makes her unique but her spirit and heart.
The film follows Joanne’s journey from her home in County Cork to the United Nations in New York, where she delivers a challenge to the most influential women in technology: to build her a robot. Through touchingly candid interviews with her parents and moving use of old home movies, No Limbs No Limits demonstrates the incredible things that ordinary people can achieve when motivated by love. The family’s determination that Joanne would live as full a life as possible has been embraced with gusto by Joanne herself, and the girl who refuses to believe anything is impossible invites us to do the same.
Kate McEvoy
