A new film sea­son is break­ing down bar­ri­ers for Dis­abled filmmakers

This week­end, the BFI South­bank will host Bust­ing the Bias, a series of screen­ings, talks and pre­sen­ta­tions show­cas­ing Dis­abled prac­ti­tion­ers’ work. The pro­gramme aims to cre­ate ongo­ing dis­course for improved access for Dis­abled tal­ent to work in the screen indus­tries, and advo­cate for authen­tic on-screen rep­re­sen­ta­tion and lead­er­ship off-screen. All screen­ings will be pre­sent­ed with sub­ti­tles for the D/​deaf and peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing hear­ing loss.

Love, direct­ed by Jane Ash­more and star­ring Jules Robert­son, is a great exam­ple of what can hap­pen when the indus­try eschews ​‘crip­ping up’ (where dis­abled parts are played by non dis­abled actors) and you get a sense of the lived expe­ri­ence the actor can bring to the role. This bit­ter­sweet film tells the sto­ry of Oscar, a com­plex char­ac­ter with unique needs but the same hopes and desires as any­one. The ​‘straight’ man­ner in which Oscar’s lines are deliv­ered might seem comedic to a per­son that does not have autism, but they are not meant as such – in this sense the film accu­rate­ly con­veys the way autism is often misinterpreted.

Next up is The Mul­ti, a short film that tack­les how a Black woman uses the order in her life to hide the trau­ma that was inflict­ed on her by her father dur­ing child­hood. This trau­ma rears its head when her sister’s wed­ding has to relo­cate to her father’s house due to the pan­dem­ic. Chats over Zoom with her sis­ter about her upcom­ing wed­ding cap­ture the lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion that comes from your office space being the same as your per­son­al space. The film was made semi-remote­ly with a major­i­ty d/​Deaf cast and crew. The stand­out per­former is Natasha Ofili, who also wrote and pro­duced the film.

Anoth­er film that was made remote­ly is Aimee Vic­to­ria, a deaf queer love sto­ry made dur­ing the height of lock­down in 2020. It pos­es the ques­tion that many of us have asked since March last year – how do you cel­e­brate spe­cial occa­sions vir­tu­al­ly? For this rea­son, the film real­ly strikes an emo­tion­al chord. The answer for Aimee is to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful poem for her girl­friend, Vic­to­ria, which she per­forms for her as she stands on her bal­cony, like a mod­ern-day deaf queer ver­sion of ​‘Romeo and Juliet’.

These films are free from the stereo­types of dis­abled peo­ple that you often see on screen – we are to be pitied, to be feared, to be reduced to our dis­abil­i­ties like car­i­ca­tures. We are com­plex peo­ple with our own flaws, desires and hopes, and these films por­tray us as such. As some­one who is pas­sion­ate about accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of dis­abled peo­ple in film and media, Bust­ing the Bias feels like a real game-changer.

Bust­ing the Bias runs at BFI South­bank 3 – 5 Decem­ber. For more info and to book tick­ets vis­it what​son​.bfi​.org​.uk