In the bold new docuseries Crip Trip, filmmaker and artist Daniel Ennett – who became a quadruple amputee at the age of five – hits the road with his longtime collaborator and reluctant caregiver Frederick Kroetsch. What starts as a mission to keep Daniel out of institutional care becomes a chaotic, moving, and darkly funny journey across North America, blending protest, performance, and personal struggle.
We spoke with Daniel about life as a disabled artist and filmmaker, how his disability has shaped both his creativity and collaborations, and why telling this story – raw, real, and unapologetically political – was something he couldn’t put off any longer.
Living without limits: how disability fuels Daniel Ennett’s creativity and collaboration
Daniel Ennett is a filmmaker, artist, and advocate from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He became a quadruple amputee after contracting meningococcal septicaemia—a severe combination of meningitis and sepsis—at the age of five. This life-threatening infection led to the amputation of both his arms and legs to save his life.
Daniel began by sharing briefly what it’s like living as a quadruple amputee and what kind of adaptations and support he requires for daily living:
“As a quadruple amputee, I require full-time carework – all of my daily tasks require some degree of help. My limbs are pretty short, so I need help with a lot of fine motor tasks and require a lot of set-up for the adaptive techniques I have for work and art.”
He continued to explain how his disability shapes his creativity:
“I think in a lot of ways it makes sure you are fundamentally in a collaborative mindset. A lot of the skills I accrued in needing daily care translate to things like directing. I’ve always been drawn to visual arts and storytelling. When I was growing up, adaptive tech was just starting to get better, so I had a pretty rich imagination because I was surrounded by so much inaccessibility.”
From inspiration porn to purposeful protest: how Daniel Ennett found his voice in film and art
Daniel’s career as a filmmaker began when he met presenter, producer and director Frederick Kroetsch, who was trying to find a web series to produce.
Daniel divulged more about what first got him into filmmaking and how his work has grown since then:
“Fred was the first one to really pull me in. In the early 2010s, he was doing a news segment on my accessible house. He had called me up and pitched doing a disability travel web series, which eventually became Invincible.
“We had at the time been locked in to doing the archetypical overcoming narratives, that we now know as ‘Inspiration Porn.’ Despite our best efforts back then, there was no appetite for critiquing the systems.
“I then took a hiatus to finish my Psychology degree, just in time to graduate into a pandemic, while transitioning from familial care to governmental care. During Covid-19, there was a disability renaissance. A lot of the community took to the internet for survival. This marked a kind of shift in the type of content people wanted to see.
“‘Nothing about us without us’, as the famous quote goes, everyone became more invested in seeing stories that told the truth of the disabled experience, which by-and-large are stories about pernicious bureaucracies, fighting poverty, and trying to maintain autonomy and dignity in an inaccessible world.”
Daniel hosted three seasons of the web series Invincible and the short film Beneath the Surface. Both of those projects follow his adventures as an above-elbow/knee quadruple amputee, where he tried various adaptive sports like skiing, skydiving, and scuba diving with sharks.
He revealed what motivated him to take on these significant challenges on camera:
“I’ve always been a bit of a homebody, mostly due to circumstance – if I had infinite resources, that probably wouldn’t be the case. So my stints doing extreme things are because I finally had the resources to pull them off, which is a privilege that making TV affords. All of a sudden, you have the infrastructure to pull off a three-man dive or jump out of a plane.
“These things take big teams to pull off. I’m always cognisant that for a private disabled individual to do these things on a whim, the prohibitive costs alone are a huge roadblock.
“But, most people don’t like to acknowledge that cost is just about the biggest roadblock for most disabled people. I was always interested in pushing myself, too. I like a good story, and putting yourself in risky situations is just about the best way to start them!”
Together, Daniel and Frederick went on to work on a 35mm art film, Form and Function, as well as a short film Lim(b)itless, where Daniel participated in body suspension.
Working with Catapult Pictures, Daniel also created a series of pitches while he finished his honours degree in psychology.
As a sophomore filmmaker, he made Flesh Ballet, a visual commentary on ableism. He went on to share how he brought it to life:
“Fred and I are part of an arts collective called Are You Artists or Cops?. We work with our collective members, Kasie Campbell, who’s an amazing soft sculpture artist, and David Baron, who’s a great Albertan cinematographer.
“We were all looking to play around in a body-horror space, and we conceptualised a kind of visual commentary on ableism, using the progression of these characters into an undulating flesh mound as a visual metaphor for ableism and the societal pressures disabled people face.”
Daniel also mentioned what it was like co-directing Push, a CBC TV series that follows a group of fiercely independent wheelchair users in Edmonton as they navigate relationships, careers, and barriers, challenging perceptions of disability with honesty and humour. He highlighted how it grew his creative skills:
“It was a trial by fire, I learned a lot on that set for 2 seasons. By the end, from fantastic mentorship, I had the skills to effectively field direct as well as story produce. There are a lot of skills in non-narrative that are not taught in a classroom!”
Speaking more about his relationship with Frederik, Daniel said:
“We make up for each other’s weaknesses, Fred knows when to push, I know when we need to rein it in! He’s got hands, I’ve got brains – it’s very mutualistic.”
In addition, Daniel maintains a thriving painting and photography practice. His work currently focuses on bringing light to disabled experiences. He explained more about how his art and psychology background influence the stories he tells in film:
“I’m very concerned with politics, its consequences, and the ethical treatment of documentary participants. When I was doing my BA Hons. Psych, I was going to go into grad school, but there were quite a few things that disillusioned me.
“One was how therapy tended to individuate dealing with very systemic problems, another was disability needed to be treated as a culture, like we would if we were talking about indigenous people making culturally-relevant therapeutic interventions.”
He added: “I realised that I could do more for my community by working on raising awareness about the systemic issues that keep us down, lack of carework, systemic cyclical poverty, and total lack of accessible architecture.
“So I’ve always been preoccupied with the question of how to make these esoteric, important issues entertaining enough for people to engage with. How do I give a platform to the anger my community has? How do I make sure the ableds can’t say “I just didn’t know” anymore?”
Crip Trip: a raw, roadside fight for disability justice
Crip Trip follows quadruple amputee Daniel and his reluctant caregiver Frederick, as they hit the road in a barely functioning RV, trying to keep Daniel out of a long-term care home by turning him into a working TV director.
From junkyard photo shoots and Indigenous powwows to American art scenes, darkroom disasters, and stand-up comedy, the duo navigates the brutal realities of disability, art, and survival on the road.
Along the way, they protest, pitch shows, and nearly kill each other as broken equipment, blown opportunities, and burned-out friendships threaten to derail their mission. It’s a punk-rock road trip for justice – with no plan, no brakes, and no limbs.
Watch the Crip Trip trailer
Daniel explained what the journey was like filming Crip Trip and moments that really stuck with him:
“It was very intense, very rigorous for everyone involved. The moments that stuck with me the most were when we spoke with members of the disabled community. From Siksika reserve and their fight to get adequate funding, to Minneapolis, where disabled artists are sustaining a beautiful community.”
Daniel went on to share how Crip Trip came about and why he wanted to share this story:
“Back in 2020, when I graduated and I started transitioning my care from familial to governmental, dealing with the intense draconian bureaucracy, I knew I had to expose it. Fred and I started concocting the treatment shortly thereafter, and the rest is history.”
Crip Trip brings humour, emotion, and activism together. Daniel admitted it was tough to balance those tones:
“It’s hard not to get too in the weeds about the very idiosyncratic policies that governments inflict on disabled people. So many issues stem from design and are very similar. Anyone who knows how neoliberalism has dictated social safety net design knows what I’m talking about.
“But the truth is, there are so many similarities it’s very easy to zoom out and look at the similarities if you root the story in relatable characters. It’s also easier to keep people’s attention when they’re entertained! So humour and emotion are the sugar that goes down with the hard-truths activism has to offer.”
Daniel and Frederick meet other disabled artists in the series. Describing what he learnt from those conversations, Daniel said:
“Just how similar our problems are – even in Canada vs the US, very similar policy design. Benefits programs that keep you impoverished by punishing you for getting ahead. Humiliating carework assessments from insurance/Occupational therapists. Ageing familial careworkers who don’t want to let their adult kids be forced into institutions. Austerity measures are always being inflicted on those who need the most help.”
In terms of what Daniel hopes people will take away from watching Crip Trip, he stated:
“Just how ubiquitous disabled people’s problems are. They all have the same underlying root cause – underfunding. So, whether it’s carework or benefits programs, I want people to see the vibrancy and anger in our community and say ‘these people deserved better,’ and then fight for that ideal.”
Exploring new stories and supporting emerging disabled filmmakers
Looking ahead to future projects, Daniel shared the kind of stories and creative challenges he is keen to explore next:
“I’m always exploring change and how it occurs, so in the non-narrative space, I’m always keeping an eye on that! In the narrative space, we’re starting to dabble in horror!”
Daniel concluded by giving some advice to emerging disabled artists and filmmakers trying to break into the industry:
“Collaborate, have fun, and engage with your community– Film is about networking and looking out for each other. Interdependence has always been the strong suit of the disabled community, and if you continue that with your film friends, you’ll go far! There are also a lot of equity-seeking initiatives in a lot of film festivals, one of my big breaks was the HotDocs Accelerator, so keep an eye out for those!”
For Canadian residents, Crip Trip is available to stream for free on AMI+. The series will also be coming to TVO in late 2025. They’re currently working on US and European distributions – watch this space!
You can follow Daniel Ennett on Instagram, where he shares updates on his filmmaking projects, art, and advocacy work.