Busting the Bias presents a myth-shattering… | Little White Lies

Busting the Bias

Bust­ing the Bias presents a myth-shat­ter­ing col­lec­tion of shorts from Dis­abled filmmakers

10 Mar 2023

Words by Meg Fozzard

Colourful circus tent with two silhouetted figures visible through the entrance.
Colourful circus tent with two silhouetted figures visible through the entrance.
Now in its sec­ond year, the BFI’s mov­ing-image show­case cen­tres Dis­abled film­mak­ing tal­ent and their vital stories.

At the begin­ning of March 2023, the BFI host­ed its sec­ond annu­al Bust­ing the Bias’ film fes­ti­val – a won­der­ful cel­e­bra­tion of Dis­abled tal­ent, dis­abil­i­ty sto­ry­telling, as well as a call for bet­ter inclu­sive prac­tices with­in the film indus­try. If you missed the fes­ti­val or don’t live in Lon­don, don’t fear. The five short films below will be avail­able on the BFI play­er until the 2nd April, giv­ing you plen­ty of time to catch up.

1. Imag­i­na­tion

Jemi­ma Hugh­es’ ani­mat­ed film is a 3 minute long poet­ic short, which I inter­pret­ed to be about how a wheel­chair user must some­times use their imag­i­na­tion when they can’t cre­ate move­ment them­selves. Visu­al­ly it is sim­ple, and yet it real­ly con­veyed this sen­ti­ment to me so well. The dull begin­ning of the film con­trasts won­der­ful­ly with all the colour that fills the screen at the end.

2. My Eyes Are Up Here

Nathan Mor­ris’ beau­ti­ful­ly shot film shows some­thing I don’t nor­mal­ly see on screen: a dis­abled per­son hav­ing a casu­al hook up. It twists between the fun­ny and roman­tic moments between mod­el Sonya (Jil­lian Mecar­do) and Tom (Ben Cura), and the dark­er casu­al ableism Sonya faces on her way to get the morn­ing after pill. I absolute­ly love see­ing Dis­abled peo­ple in roman­tic com­e­dy films, and Mor­ris’ film real­ly well act­ed, fea­tur­ing scenes that pow­er chair users will be all too famil­iar with, like hav­ing to argue with pas­sen­gers on the bus for space and the fear of a home­made ramp.

3. Call Us CRIPtic

For doc­u­men­tary fans, Jes­si Gutch has cre­at­ed a film about CRIP­tic Arts – an organ­i­sa­tion cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and chang­ing the indus­try for Deaf and Dis­abled cre­atives. This short doc­u­men­tary shows the work that CRIP­tic Arts does to progress the indus­try and the bar­ri­ers that their Dis­abled artists face. It’s an impact­ful film that also dis­cuss­es the pow­er of the lens in film­mak­ing and the impor­tance of hav­ing Dis­abled peo­ple work­ing behind the scenes, as well as on screen and on stage.

4. Loud­er Is Not Always Clearer

Toby Cameron’s short is anoth­er visu­al­ly stun­ning piece. It cen­tres around Jon­ny, who is Deaf and describes his abil­i­ty to lip read as a super­pow­er. The film shows his dif­fi­cul­ties to lip read in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions, like at a din­ner par­ty, in a night­club or hav­ing sex in the dark. I real­ly enjoyed how the vary­ing lev­els of music and sound, plus a cre­ative use of cap­tions and audio descrip­tion were employed to help tell the story.

5. Verisimil­i­tude

You might recog­nise Ruth Made­ly, who plays Bel­la in David Proud’s film. She has been in the TV shows Years and Years, When Bar­bara Met Alan, and this year she’ll appear in Dr Who. Ruth plays Bel­la, a wheel­chair-using dis­abled actor who is strug­gling in her own career but is tasked with teach­ing Josh (Lau­rie David­son) how to act dis­abled for a part. This film high­lights the wider prob­lem in the film indus­try of actors who crip up’ and pre­tend to be Dis­abled for roles, leav­ing tal­ent­ed Dis­abled actors who can bring lived expe­ri­ence to the role by the way­side. The part that makes this film so galling is the com­plete dis­re­gard that Josh shows for even try­ing to under­stand the char­ac­ter he wants to play.

This is just a small sam­ple of the pro­gramme that this year’s fes­ti­val offered, and high­lights the diver­si­ty in genre, tone and sub­ject mat­ter from Dis­abled artists. Bust­ing the Bias has once again deliv­ered on a week­end where Dis­abled cre­ativ­i­ty can shine through – roll on the 2024 edi­tion.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, month­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.

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