The best way to win an Oscar, so movie pundits and history indicate, is to play a character with a disability. Think Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot and Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. It’s a truth that irritates London Disability Arts Forum (LDAF) Director, Julie McNamara, and worked as a driver towards the establishment of the organisation’s annual Disability Film Festival, to be held for the fifth time, on June 5 to 8, at the National Film Theatre.
According to McNamara, the distorted portrayal of disabled people on-screen was one of the main reasons for creating a Disability Film Festival in London. Established in collaboration with LDAF Film and New Media Development Worker, Caglar Kimyoncu, McNamara says the festival gives LDAF an opportunity to ‘counter-balance the representation of disabled people by non-disabled people’ and to provide a platform for disabled film-makers.
That platform provides disability film-makers and creatives space to debate the question posed by McNamara: ‘Are we supposed to believe that non-disabled actors are far better at depicting a variety of experiences of disabling conditions and at expressing the often harsh reality of life in a disabling world?’
It is a rhetorical question, and one that deserves some reflection, as it is not merely on-screen representations of disability that the London Disability Film Festival seeks to address. Disability film festivals around the world – there are festivals in Moscow, Canada, Finland, Germany and Italy – screen films in which disabled people are featured as subjects. The London Disability Film Festival differs from these, however, in that disabled people are also the creative controllers.
‘There are other disability film festivals worldwide, but our festival is unique because it is led by, programmed by and organised by disabled people,’ Kimyoncu explains. ‘And we only show films made by disabled people or creatively controlled by disabled people… That’s why we don’t call it disability and film, but disability film.’
‘In Germany or France, they haven’t any disability art movements led by disabled people. These are mostly led by non-disabled people… so we are in a better space in the UK.’
Although in a ‘better space’, Kimyoncu stresses that there is still room for debate on a number of issues to do with disability film-making. In addition to the 61 films over four days, the Disability Film Festival will therefore include panel discussions and opportunities for debate and discussion.
‘There [is] still a lack of opportunities, especially in film-making, because the industry is so competitive from a body beautiful point of view, and also from an ability point of view,’ he says. ‘For example, when [non-disabled people] come across a visually impaired film-maker, they can’t accept the fact that the person is a film-maker, because it is already a competitive area.’
Another issue for disability film-makers is training and access. The significance of easy physical access to buildings and studios, says Kimyoncu, is often overlooked by training providers and facilitators, while at the same time, new digital technology has made film-making more accessible to people with a disability.
‘We always talk about access as a whole, access as an attitude,’ Kimyoncu says. ‘It’s not just physical access to buildings for wheelchair users, there are so many aspects of access, and another one is representation. Nowadays, digital technology has created some easier access and so a lot of people are using digital technology for their discussion ground.’
The access issue applies also to the viewing of the films themselves. Disability Film Festival host, the National Film Theatre, has increased its wheelchair space and installed a ramp for the stage. Visual transcriptions of all panel discussion speeches will be projected onto the large screen, while audio-description, subtitling and sign language interpretation are all components of the festival.
However, the organisers of the Disability Film Festival are wary of adopting a segregative approach. An important element of the Disability Film Festival, says Kimyoncu, is that it embraces both films with a disability narrative focus, and those which – while creatively controlled by disabled people – fit more into mainstream narrative cinema. Thus, the focus of the festival is on ‘film as a creative artform’ and the provision of opportunities for film-makers to showcase their work both ‘to the public and the mainstream audiovisual industry.’
‘There are issue-based films and there are documentaries and they are all high quality,’ says Kimyoncu. ‘But also there are films produced and made by disabled film-makers and the subject matter is not about disability. There are two purposes [to that]. One is [to focus on] disabled artists and their creativity, and the other is to use the film form to explore the issues [around disability] and raise the profile.’
The London Disability Arts Forum’s fifth Disability Film Festival will be held at the National Film Theatre, June 5-8. CLICK HERE for more information.