The National Federation for The Blind was offended at the way blind people were portrayed the upcoming thriller "Blindness," starring Julianne Moore and Marc Ruffalo, and planned to protest against it.

The Fernando Meirelles film based on Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's acclaimed novel, which garnered mixed reviews at its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is set for a limited release in the US this Friday, October 3. "Blindness" portrays a breakdown in society after a virus starts wiping out everyone’s vision, turning them into savages, who compete for meager resources, prompting a strong negative reaction from blind people, who considered their portrayal outrageous.

"The movie portrays blind people as monsters, and I believe it to be a lie," said Marc Maurer, president of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind. "Blindness doesn't turn decent people into monsters."

With the help of their supporters, organization plans to hand out fliers and carry signs reading: "I’m not an actor. But I play a blind person in real life," among other slogans.

Several staff members of the National Federation for The Blind, including three people who are not blind, attended a screening of the film last week, and concluded that the movie reinforces inaccurate stereotypes, including that the blind cannot care for themselves and are perpetually disoriented. Their reaction was not simply based on the trailers, they actually have a legitimate beef with the film.

"We face a 70 percent unemployment rate and other social problems because people don’t think we can do anything, and this movie is not going to help _ at all," said Christopher Danielsen, a spokesman for the organization.

While Meirelles was unavailable for comment as he is shooting on location, according to Miramax, the studio released a statement that read, in part, "We are saddened to learn that the National Federation of the Blind plans to protest the film `Blindness.'"

Critical response to "Blindness" at Cannes was mixed at best, with a positive notice from The Guardian, but the Hollywood trade papers were far from kind. The jury wasn't impressed either, giving it a 1.3 average out of 4.

A Brazil-Canada-Japan co-production, the English-language "Blindness" stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal. Like the book, the film is set in an unspecified city which is taken over by a mysterious epidemic that causes people to see nothing but fuzzy white light.

Only one person does not go blind, a housewife played by Moore, who keeps her secret to stay with her doctor husband, played by Ruffalo. The movie is told from her point of view. "There's no explanation for why she can see," Meirelles said. "One guy goes blind, then everyone he has any relationship with does, and in a few weeks, the whole world is blind. All of humanity is collapsing. Everyone is losing their humanity. There's no good guys and bad guys."