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

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 2^nd 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.

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