Skip to playerSkip to main content
Blind AF Documentary Movie Trailer HD - Plot synopsis: Blind AF is a new award-winning documentary that follows blind Paralympian, Army veteran and multiple world-record holder Shawn Cheshire on her extraordinary 3,600-mile solo bike ride across the United States. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Gina LeVay Goldstein, Blind AF captures Cheshire’s historic attempt to ride a single, non-tandem bicycle across America, 3,600 miles in 60 straight days, completely blind. Her journey serves as the backdrop for a much deeper story about trauma, healing, independence and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.

While working as a paramedic in 2009, Cheshire, a 36-year-old Army veteran and single mother of two, suffered a brain injury that left her without sight. Spiraling into a debilitating depression, she sought treatment at a VA hospital, where a combination of adaptive sports and treatment for Complex PTSD helped her begin rebuilding her life.

Within years, Cheshire was competing at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio. She went on to become a 13-time U.S. National Champion in paracycling and set a world record as the first blind person to cross the Grand Canyon without a sighted guide.

Drawing on her personal reflections as well as interviews with friends, doctors, trainers and family, the film reveals the experiences that shaped her and the painful memories she was finally forced to confront. LeVay combines intimate vérité filmmaking, breathtaking cinematography, journal entries and immersive sound design to bring audiences inside Cheshire’s experience of navigating the world without sight.

“From the beginning, Shawn and I worked together to create an authentic narrative true to her life and experiences,” said director Gina LeVay Goldstein. “This film goes beyond the epic athletic achievement; it’s a story about healing, transformation, and the power of vulnerability.”

For Cheshire, the cross-country journey became a defiant and life-affirming declaration of independence, a refusal to allow blindness, trauma, fear or other people’s expectations to define what her life could be. Executive produced by five-time Emmy winner Jeff ZImbalist (Harlan Coben’s “Final Twist”), the film had its world premiere at Geena Davis’s Bentonville Film Festival and went on to win Best of Fest at the 2025 Sedona International Film Festival. Blind AF is both an epic story of athletic achievement and an intimate portrait of a woman determined to live life on her own terms.

The film will be available for streaming on October 28th on Amazon Prime, AppleTV, Tubi, and Documentary+.
#BlindAF
Transcript
00:02be careful i didn't know what i was signing up for everything's okay you are safe i'm so tired
00:09i don't think i can do this right my brain will give out a u.s army veteran and former
00:17paramedic who lost her sight sean cheshire started a 3 800 mile journey totally blind
00:30i don't know if i'll ever be at peace with being blind i knew it'd be hard i just didn't
00:36know how
00:36hard it was going to be when i started doing all of my trauma ptsd work i had no idea
00:49how my childhood
00:51affected my adult life i needed this i needed to learn this if i don't challenge myself i
00:59become so overwhelmed and i just focus on everything i've lost i really needed a focus
01:08i don't like to feel stuck i like to make sure that i always have choices so i have to
01:13do something for
01:14myself she's an extremely confident woman she's a superhero but she's real life as a blind person
01:23someone tell me i cannot get on a single bike and ride across the country i'll be the judge of
01:29that
01:31you're gonna do what right now in the studio have an amazing and inspiring story this morning you've
01:36got to hear this what she's doing is it's never been attempted right here i've raced with lance
01:42armstrong world championships never seen anything remotely close to this absolutely dangerous the
01:47mental fatigue trying to figure out where the sound is oh my god
01:58i'm just afraid to lose her again just telling me if something happens to me another blow to the head
02:07she would not survive i think you should hug me
02:17but that's not stopping her today's a good day to die in her mind there is no quitting when you
02:24go
02:25through hardship you come out on the other side i am not okay living a life where i feel like
02:31i'm
02:31limited because i am blind

Recommended