And What Next? Demanding Change | THE CINEMA OF IDEAS

good evening and welcome to and what next demanding change this special Roundtable event celebrating disabled film making and disability drawing while confronting the film industry's barriers and ableism my name is lilan Crawford I'm a white woman in her 20s with dark curly hair and glasses and I'm wearing a flowery blouse and a brown velvet jacket professionally I am a freelance film and culture writer as well as co-host of the autism fre Cinema podcast I work with Cinemas including the BFI the

Garden Cinema and the barbun to curate relaxed screenings for neurod Divergent and disabled audiences in order to make Cinema spaces more accessible and comfortable for those who do not feel welcome in typical screenings I recently hosted an event at the baron called stims towards a neurodiverse cinema which featured several short films by neurod Divergent filmmakers screened in a relaxed environment and concluded with a panel discussing with some of those filmmakers how accessible the film ind

ustry is for neurodivergent people and what change is needed I was delighted to be invited to host this panel for cinemar of ideas to continue this vital conversation in the broader context of disability and to discuss the changing nature of disability both on and off the screen one of the relaxed screenings I recently curated was for a film I love the feature documentary is there anybody out there by El dining the film is now streaming on Netflix and on demand and was nominated in the outstandi

ng debut by a British writer director or producer category at the 2024 BST I'm delighted that Ella is with us this evening to discuss working on her feature debut as well as the future as she prepares her historical drama feature for the B BFI called Curiosities of Falls it gives me great pleasure to also introduced three filmmakers who worked on the three short films screened online prior to this discussion Justin Edgar who wrote and produced very similitude has directed numerous documentaries

and television projects as well as features large special p people and the upcoming something else he has sat on the baa debut jury the disability screen Advisory Group for the BFI and advises Channel 4 the BBC and Netflix on disability he is also currently writing a book on disability in British film for Bloomsbury Ted Evans is the writer director of retreat which is currently being developed into a feature his other projects have included two films for the 2012 par Olympic opening ceremony sho

rt films the end and to know him as well as music videos bbc1 documentary signs for change uh featuring Rose aing Ellis and Netflix short documentary turn up the Bas Jesse gut Co co-directed pyramid of disunion with ell glendenning her short films have screened at International festivals such as London Film Festival BFI Flair British schz Berlin and Edinburgh including the prize winning until the tide Creeps in and blind as a beat Jesse is currently in post-production on her debut documentary fe

ature Bordertown and in development on her debut narrative feature my CS are trying to kill me welcome to all four of you together you bring a diverse wealth of experience and expertise and represent the future of Cinema I've given a very brief description of each of your careers but I'd like to start by inviting you all to say hello to our audience and describe yourselves and to talk a bit about what your disabled identity means to you and how it informs your film making practice so um if we wa

nt to start with with with Ella introducing herself to um the audience please hello hello my name is Ella Glen dinning um I am a white woman in her early 30s I've got a round face uh blue eyes um I'm wearing a black and white jacket I mean cardigan and I'm holding a brown and white chihuahua um um and I've forgotten what you want me to say well I I I thought we might actually how about we all introduce ourselves and then I'll come back to the question that that I asked I asked rather a lot in on

e go no that's quite all right Ted do you want to go next hello everyone I'm Ted H this is my sign name Ted which is uh two hands uh kind of embracing yourself it means teddy bear um I'm a white uh middle-aged man with a goatee wearing a black T-shirt um and uh I'm a death man as well so I communicate both in British sign language and I also speak this is my voice Justin hello uh I'm Justin I uh am a white middle-aged man uh slightly gr beard back pulled back brown hair pulled back into a ponyta

il and wearing a um a denim shirt and I'm in my study um with some books and plants behind me um uh yeah that's me and uh Jesse hi everyone uh I'm Jesse I am a white woman uh in my early 30s I'm wearing a kind of Patchwork cardigan um with a dark blue wall behind me and actually some dried flowers from my wedding which have stayed dry and I I was going to say alive but I guess that's the point of dry flowers so I going to shut up for about dry flowers thank you lovely thank you all of you um so

to come to the first sort of big question I suppose in why we're all here and what we're going to be talking about I I think it would be important to just talk about a bit about what disabled identity means to you the word disabled um and how you've used that to inspire your film making starting with Al or just go in the in the order that we have established um for the sake of e um yeah that's a good question and I guess I have different answers to it um I mean I'm I'm very disabled and proud I'

ve always been disabled and proud really for as long as I can remember um I think my my work will always Center disabled people um whether or not the stories that I tell will always will yeah always be well they won't always be overtly about disability um but I will always um include disabled characters they'll always be disabled Le and and to me that's because that's what's most interesting I love um art that's personal um my work is always really personal my documentary is a personal film but

um fiction fiction work that I've done as well is always very personal um yeah I mean I believe so passionately that we are a beautiful beautiful Community wor celebrating and um yeah I guess it means a lot to me it does yes thank you yeah I I think that it's it's particularly interesting with with your feature film how um that comes across and you talking about it in in a long durational form is is um is really important um for the discussion that we'll have as well um Ted sorry could you repea

t the question again yes of course sorry so it was it was a question about what disabled identity means to you and how it informs your film making that's a tricky one well obviously I'm I'm proud to be there but because of my upbringing um I went to a school which kind of tried to make you feel not there you know uh we weren't allowed to sign up scho um so it's quite common for de people to grow up with um a mixed identity crisis and funny enough that is infused in a lot of my work you know tryi

ng to explore that identity in the films that I write um and traditionally in the death Community I mean we're changing a lot as a community in the past kind of deaths are stabled has been separated but I think a lot of De people now are embracing that there's a lot more intersectionality within our community now so um yeah I don't know I I guess I am a disabled man but I've um that's been a comp a complicated journey and I kind of still think of myself as uh death because I grew up in the death

community and and so it's a cultural identity for me and um and also a linguistic one we have a language which um is such a big part of my uh my work thank you Justin yeah it's a really good question I mean I I don't think I really identified as disabled until kind of the mid90s until I was in my 20s um I should say that I wasn't I'm hard a fearing so I'm completely deaf in my right ear here about 60% in in my left ear and um this a con deafness so I had it from birth and it was just my normali

ty and growing up in thatchers 1980s you know they didn't have hearing tests the way my kids have hearing tests when you're born you know so it was just something I kind of felt like I I got on with but then when I heard about you know the disability rights movement when I was a student at University and um began to become engaged in those debates and theories then I very much um did did realize you know that I had a disability and was really inter interested in exploring that in in terms of my

work um but also in terms of activism Etc and um became very proud of it I think the key moment for me actually is when I went to my GP and they said oh you can you can get a disabled rail card really okay brilliant yeah I'll have one of those um so um it was still a very proud disabled rail card holder now yeah I think I think part of the reason why I wanted to ask ask this question and the sort of ideas of disambiguation within disability is is how it I mean I mentioned in the introduction abo

ut my work with neurod Divergence and how neurod Divergence sort of is categorized Under Disability as well so I think that it's it's very important for us it's I'm glad that we're starting with these kinds of conversations because I think it's very important to sort of look at what that diversity looks like and and what that relationship has to to the word disabled um which comes um is obviously in um the title of this event Jesse would you like to respond to the that question yeah of course um

so I guess well like following on from what you just said about sort of diversity of experience um I guess so I was completely sort of non-disabled um until I was 26 and then got an diagnosis of ovarian cancer and then got a sort of secondary diagnosis of incurable ovarian cancer and that then obviously you know is a big kind of Life Cher um and I don't think I necessarily thought of myself as disabled or I I suppose it was more perhaps around being ill as a sort of I don't know I guess identit

y perhaps um but I think what I then grew to feel is it very much in a sort of political kind of way I suppose and I think thanks to you know kind of meeting and making friends with people like Ella and Kyla Harris um Jamie hail I think they all really taught me about almost like the radical possibilities of being disabled and seeing it as a kind of seeing ableism within a context of the up system that we all kind of have to operate in and I think that was kind of the start of a bit of a journey

for me where it felt more like I could kind of ret I don't know like somehow more like not just being like the ill girl who might may or may not be dying of cancer but it was like no I'm a disabled woman and it felt sort of like yes this is it just felt felt good I think um so yeah I guess I'm still a bit new in my identity of it so maybe I'm still figuring out a bit but definitely proudly identify as it now yeah that's that's really interesting and I suppose in terms of what the second part of

what I was talking about in terms of how that relates to film making had you been making films prior to um your diagnosis and and your relationship with um with diagnosis and with disability and did that change afterwards yeah so I had but um I suppose I hadn't I was working within like the humanitarian kind of like charity space um and I hadn't really had my sort of Industry you know kind of you know that like first film where it's like you know whether it's like the BFI backet or some kind of

industry commission and it get that sort of recognition in a kind of industry sort of way um and then basically when I found out it was incurable that was in the strictest lockdown we had in 2020 and I was basically contending with this idea of like what if I have to say goodbye to people in lockdown um and then this commission came up with the uncertain Kingdom which just in short was also part of where they wanted to do a film that was a unique perspective on the pandemic um and I was sort of

sitting there looking out my window when I saw it and I was like this is it like this is and we then got it uh and then that short was kind of my entry point I guess and it was you know we were really it was biffer nominated um we didn't actually enter into any festivals we just released it online um on YouTube um so yeah I don't know yeah I guess it was a funny sort of that was what sort of gave me the the break as it were and that was obviously inherently tied to that experience but it wasn't

in I wasn't thinking of it like that at all it was literally I was just thinking I have to leave one film that's mine and not sort of you know in the world if that's to be um so yeah that was kind of I don't know if that did answer your question but no it did thank thank you so much um and I also just wanted to say um before we continue that if any if you want to come in and respond to anything that anyone has said at any time do just I know it's more it's more difficult in this format online t

han it is perhaps um in person but you can wave or just come in at any point um we don't have to go around um individually but thank you Jesse um and thank you to all of you and um and thank you again to everyone who who is is listening to us it's also quite strange that we can't we can't see you of course um so I suppose W with that in mind I mean one of the things that I was hoping we'd be able to to talk about is is how for potentially people who um are disabled and thinking of of moving into

the the film industry um if you could talk a bit about how you thought about it prior to entering it um and what the beginnings of moving towards making films looks like um and felt for each of you um Ella if you want to to start yeah thank you I think I kind of always wanted to be a filmmaker um but I didn't go straight to UNI and I think part of that was like I didn't go and study film at art school or whatever after after going to school and college um I think there was probably a bit of not

so much internalized ableism but just um fear about you know I'm very aware of how the world sees me and very aware I've always been very politically disabled and very aware of how hard things are for us um so any who well I didn't go I didn't study film until I was um yeah in my early 20s um and and that was wonderful and I made a short film a random actx film um I think immediately after graduating or I hadn't even graduated yet so I was like sort of immediately making sure thoughts but then

I thought well I'm you know it's not like I'm you know I was scared to take the next step into trying to make a feature um so I was like okay I'm going to try and get in the industry in the way that everyone does and try you know start out from the bottom and work my way up so I did some sort of apprentic ships and stuff um in production and that's when I realized how horrendously ableist and and accessible the industry is um it was really demoralizing um I mean just yeah for me mainly was just

like the physical in Access yeah uh you know on a film set a see of trailers the sets like an obstacle calls with wires everywhere and I'm a wheelchair user um so yeah it was really yeah really demoralizing um and I can't I can't remember exactly when the turning point was but um yeah I continued making shorts um so I was still directing a bit and then yeah I just so yeah the bit of production work that I did was enough to show me like you're never going to be able to work your way up um which i

s yeah depressing so anyhoo I had the idea for my documentary I applied for funding from the BFI do society and was successful and so that's all wonderful so I'm doing it um I do think the industry is changing though I really do there's yeah access coordinator is a newish role um there are more conversations around disability now way more than there were even like five years ago less than that yeah um so it's not all miserable but yes that's my story essentially I realized I couldn't work my way

up and I had to just make stuff now and find a way to make stuff now yeah absolutely um Ted what was that experience like for you um so yeah I mean I was always interested in making films as a kid I mean I I I used to experience the cinema in the 90s and late 80s um when there was no subtitles screening there was no captions back then so it was always kind of visual and and musical experience for me and I it really rubed off on me I used to film my toys as a kid B like the sp sp uh movie that c

ame out last year but honestly I never ever contemplated being a filmmaker it just wasn't it just wasn't possible and um I live in East London and uh in a very filmic area so uh there's a place called Columbia Road where we have a family business there for many years and I used to watch the film who's arve you know um they do all kinds of TV commercials and one of my favorite films was filmed in Thea Children of Men so alons so Kon was here and just looking at that from the outside know an army

of people and and looking at the director and feeling they're never going to give someone like me a chance so I didn't even go to university you know after I left uh uh College I was exhausted and um I was just looking to to find a career for ages and it wasn't until I saw death filmmakers working in television and I thought oh my god well they're they're making they're making films and and it was the death Community who gave me my my first opportunity so my my very close friend said to me what

you doing in this course come and be a run and I just quit my um the degree I was doing in my 20s and just started from the bottom and um from there it just kind of progressed I learned everything on the job and here I am thank you yeah um Justin how was it um VI when you were starting with film uh I mean when when I my first film was was not a disability film you know and I got an incredibly lucky break really I um hooked up with a producer called Alex Osborne he'd just done a film for film fou

r and film for just set up a a new Department called film for lab um which was run by your dad actually Jesse weirdly no NE something and Jesse's dad back this is in the late 90s was was um good enough to to Greenlight my first film you know and I was really really really lucky but I made the film and I think by everybody's admission including um uh Jesse's dad it it wasn't a very good film and um it did okay commercially you know but it it was it made gave me a really useful lesson which was th

at if you if you have the opportunity to make a film you know make a film that's important and that resonates and is about something you know um which my first film wasn't so that in the wake of that I um I sort of combined the two enthusiasms really or the two interests of disability and and Cinema and and realized that nobody else was kind of thinking about disability Cinema in a serious way you know um anywhere anywhere in the world really you know nobody was kind of coming in with uh you kno

w the PO I of disablement theories that were coming through like um the social model of disability this was the early naughties and and and applying those uh to cinema you know what you did have in cinema was a lot of cripping up and a lot of ableism and a lot of tragedy narratives about disability and we really wanted to to change that so um one of the first things we did when we start at 104 films was was to badge the UK film councilors was then the sort Forerunner of the BFI to to set up a um

short film scheme especially for disabled filmmakers so that's what was called the magic hour and we we ran that um for a good few years and and made all sorts of films and the the one caveat with the first five films that we made is that they must all be comedies you know we wanted to get away completely from that traed narrative and um the idea was always as well that we were um you know the films had disabled authorship you know that they were coming from an authentic voice they weren't a no

n-disabled person making a film about disabled people and I think that that philosophy seemed somewhat revolutionary at the time but certainly isn't now you know and that's really exciting that you get so many filmmakers uh coming through now and really interesting talents that um have amazing incredible stories to tell but are also really engaged with the politics of disablement and putting that onto the screen in a way that hasn't done been done before so I'm really excited you know I think it

's a really exciting time um there's some really cool stuff happening um for the first time in years and uh you know I'm very very very happy to to be seeing that yes definitely um and that's something that I'll I'll um there's a way of framing that that I'd like us to to continue discussing in a minute but I just wanted to give Jesse a chance first to to to to talk a bit about um her experience thank you um so yeah I guess I sort of so I'll be quick because I guess I slightly touched on mine bu

t um I guess as Justin obviously alluded to well not alluded to but um uh so my parents both worked in the film industry so I guess that was a I was always around films so I just wanted to do what they did um and my but my my dad who not only has obviously very good taste also has quite High morals so he was not keen on the kind of nepo baby idea uh so did not help me get that job in the film industry so I went and did L I don't know I just had like a load of like really crap kind of jobs and I

just hate I don't know I just was like getting nowhere and I just hated all of these film jobs that I had and they were with horrible toxic people um and then that's when I decided to try and move into like the sort of nonprofit charity world because I just sort of had enough with it really um and I I think I probably would have just carried on I was very happy kind of doing that um and I i' sort of just been trained to be like a sort of emergency delegate kind of person which basically means th

at if if there's an earthquake or something you get a call and you you fly out in like 48 Hours um so I I sort of was just about going to start doing that and then that's when all of the cancer stuff happened um and then I guess yeah since then the film I mentioned that was kind of my sort of root in um and yeah I don't know I guess it's just it's a very bizarre like sort of I just have a a very bizarre existence because I I I can only really live sort of scan to scan um which it doesn't necessa

rily always go like coales with an idea of you know your career and future and this sort of thing so yeah it's quite an odd experience I would say but yeah I now don't really know any other way yeah thank you I mean what I was thinking about while you were all talking was the sort of pressure that there is for disabled filmmakers to make films which are about disabled people or that might be described as having a sort of disabled aesthetic I mean especially if it's the sort of the idea that one

can tell when a non-disabled filmmaker is making a film about disabled people um and vice versa and I wondered if you could talk a bit about your relationship with that pressure and and how important you I mean Ella you said earlier that that you you want to make films because of course there's um a lack of representation and that's obviously very important um but I I did want I do do wonder how you feel about the pressure that you're placed under to to actually make those films yeah that's a re

ally good question I think that there are definitely well yeah I think there's two different camps with with this topic like you said I do want to make films about disabled people um I don't feel Under Pressure to but that's because I'm doing it I guess um I will say that I was very strategic in making my documentary um I I like documentaries but I love fiction way more I love writing way more um but yeah as I touched on earlier I sort of I realized that yeah as as a wheelchair user in this indu

stry I'm not going to be able to work my way up in any in any like really in any Universe in this universe um so um so I'm so sorry I don't actually know what's going on with my brain tonight can I just be really candid about something yeah of course um I've quit drinking and I used to like have a little drink before I did anything like this and like I found it so much easier it's absolutely fine and it's great but I feel like I'm just like really not on form but I'm going to try and do not I ju

st wanna I just wanted to get out of there because I'm like what the hell are you saying Ella right um if it's reassuring you you were making complete sense so do not okay I don't know I started to lose it um can you repeat the question very quickly and I'll give a really excellent and concise answer so you were talking about the pressures that you're that you are under disabled filmmakers are under to make films about about disability yeah I yeah I reckon some people probably do feel pressure y

et and I was saying that I was strategic about making my documentary because I knew that I had this disabled story to tell um I love my documentary of course um but I do want to move away from making films where disability is like the hook and the reason that the film exists um so when I said earlier that I'm always going to make films for disabled people about disabled people sorry if I'm talking too fast that's absolutely true um but what I'm really excited about for my future career is just t

elling incredible stories that happen to Center disabled characters that was a better answer yeah and I I this is something that I think think about a lot in in relation and also in relation to neurod Divergent film making as well and all other forms of identity within film making is the idea that in order to get sort of started you have to make that kind of film in order to then develop your passion projects I suppose so it's a sort of way of of of doing that um Ted do you have thoughts on on t

his subject yeah it's interesting because um I'm a death director and that's how I'm written it's how people refer to me sorry um and you kind of have to live with that you know so every kind of project that comes to me there's some some part of my shared experience attached to it um so I do kind of feel that kind of weight of expectation that I have to kind of either facilitate kind of crossover or I have to kind of Rebel some part of my own or or my community shared experience and I kind of fe

el split about it because on the one half you know I absolutely love my community I love my people and I'm excited about the stories that kind of come to me but then it's also like you know well am I allowed to make any other film you know part the the wonderful thing about film making is the discovery of a story you know and to to to be able to tell other people's story is a wonderful privilege that the majority of the industry you know both in TV and film do every day you know but as of the ye

t you know I think in my entire 15 year career so far I've been offered two corporate films that had no kind of uh relation to one part of my identity so that's that's how that that kind of just affects me as a person because kind of like what am I allowed to do where do I belong kind of thing know I get um asked a lot to do consultancy work you know um uh probably can't talk too much about that but like often I'm used to help other people tell uh our stories or or tell a stories that feature th

e death experience and um I don't mind it I I I really do like it but I do question my kind of longterm place and the only thing I would just say know to anyone who's watching know who who also come from a minority group know be a writer if you can write your own stories you have control and if I wasn't a writer I feel pretty desperate be honest I think writing is the most important thing you can do yeah thank you so much um Justin um do you want to yeah no well well said Ted I think that's it i

sn't it you know because then if you can write you know you can really um control your your own depiction and representation you know so it's a really really key skill I always think that writing is is like a muscle you know if you do a bit of it every day it will get better you'll get better at it and people say oh I'm not a writer you know but and there are real stories out there you can tell you know there are some really really cool stories about disabled people you can tell you know so use

that as a starting point and then just practice and practice and work a little bit every day on on that and there aren't enough disabled writers you know out there it's getting better really in the BBC writers room you know Channel 4 done some really good work around that and bringing on new disabled writers um I mean in ansers the question I think you've got to do both really to avoid being pigeon hold and I suppose I don't know is that sort of easier for me to say play Devil's Advocate because

I non-visible disability you know um but I I I don't know I think I think there is a bit more acceptance of that these days I think if there's some kind of scheme or program for disabled writers yeah it's very or directors it's it's sometimes quite easy to um fall into the ghetto you know being a disabled filmmaker um but I think if you're a good writer and a good filmmaker your work cuts through anyway really doesn't it you know and U and you certainly use use your status as a disabled person

to springboard um you know into into getting work commissioned and made I mean snapshot of my work at the moment you know as a writer director I think um probably it's probably about half and half you know so um so some of the work is does doesn't feature disability at all you know and it's just other stuff that interest me thematically and I don't know if disability is a theme you know and and um you know I know what my theme and what interests me are um and sometimes they uh touch on disabilit

y and sometimes not you know um but is disability a theme or a subject I don't know maybe that's another conversation to have Al together you know um certainly in the eyes of um commissioning editors Etc it's probably uh it's probably a theme you know and that's what they they want when they commission disabled filmmakers and it is a problem you know but hopefully we're breaking away from that a little bit it was something we always tried to discourage you know when we were doing um magicare fil

ms um you know films could be about anything but there are unique and amazing things about the disabled experience you know and mainstream culture survives and thrives on the fringes and um you do you do need to hear these stories as well about disability and that's important and it's important to have a a sense of identity and representation as a disabled person you know so Cuts both ways really definitely thank you Justin um Jesse um yeah I think echoing what everyone said like I recently so m

y the um my feature documentary has as it's kind of gone on it's sort of become actually quite authored in the sense that my voice is in it and it's sort of a very subjective film um I also shot it so it's very much like through my eyes um but it's been very confronting thinking about write like writing it basically um which I'm now like in the process of doing slightly retrospectively having shot it um because it's yeah it has nothing to do with cancer or disability at all um and I it really ma

de me realize like how much I'd sort of yeah almost let it that the answer to that question of like what's your voice because I think sometimes people kind of ask that you know like what's your voice as a filmmaker and it made me realize how much I'd sort of made my voice just not just that but I'd leaned into it a lot and then found myself floundering a bit about like but what am I writing is me when it's not that um so it's been a really interesting process that I'm still sort of working out b

ut it really made me realize that and actually like what Ted said really struck a chord about it being one part of your identity and I think in this kind of age of you know like diversity box ticking I think sometimes it you know you end up sort of feeling a bit like you're sort of a tick box and that you need to somehow play into that whereas actually that it shouldn't be what it's about at all it should be about um just being able to be who you want to be in many multifaceted ways um but yeah

then saying that my fiction feature is very much a response to the depiction of cancer in films and how it's really bad um and really not accurate and just awful so it was that was a I guess maybe like slightly akin to Ella's documentary where it was almost like a angered response and was very much driven by the disability um so yeah I guess just echoing what everyone's saying really the DU duality of them I think yeah thank you that that was really wonderful I just wanted to say at this point I

think we've got about 20 minutes left that if anyone watching wants to um contribute in any way or um add ask us some questions that I can then um read out to our panel then then then please please do send those through um I suppose one of the the things that I was thinking about um as well in in relation to as I said I said at the beginning that a lot of my own work is in how we actually sort of screen um the films to and how to reach um disabled audiences and who they're actually being made f

or because of course um most Cinema spaces are not completely accessible to um disabled people um and certainly not to um disabled filmmakers as well and I think that I I wanted to hear a bit about your experiences of how you feel about sort of film exhibition the different modes of sort of um premieres festivals q&as th those sorts of things um and how you navigate the actual part of once you've made a film what it's what it's like sort of talking about it and what's expected of you as as as fi

lmmakers and your relationship to that experience um Ella would you like to as especially sort of as you've just had a big release I and um as I say I was working on a screening of of of is there anybody out there um which was designed to be more accessible um for neur Divergent people I I I wondered how you had sort of found the experience of of the film's release yeah thank you it's been a real mixed bag it's been it's been a really really wild time um yeah I guess well I don't guess the last

year I've spent traveling with world going to festivals and stuff with the film um and it's been amazing but I mean you know incredibly exhausting and I think most disabled people will agree that when you travel it's like it's like one of those kind of yeah microscope moments when you're like yeah plane travel whatever it's like PE you see the worst of people you see people's ableism like so intensely when you travel like for me it's it's always so much F around getting my wheelchair in the plan

e and whatever um so that's been like the most challenging part of the release um for me has been all the traveling um even though I've also loved it and it's been such a privilege um yeah I could yeah I could answer your question with many many different things there yeah um what else what else uh talking about the film um it's been good it's been good for my anxiety I've got I've become better at public speaking and yes less anxious about that sort of thing um yeah anxiety for me is way more o

f a disability than my physical disability it's like yeah it can be really debilitating um yeah I suppose that was partly what I was getting at was the that I I wonder because of course being a filmmaker is you you can make the film but then there's this this additional pressure that you then have to sort of release that film and bring it to people and do talks and and and those kinds of events which to me just doesn't for a lot of disabled people I think is is is such a huge barrier to actually

then being able to to release those those films so I that was the sort of aspect that I've I've been been thinking about a lot um so yeah do you want to say anything else on that or but well yeah yeah on that aspect it's yeah I feel I I'm I've just come back from a trip so it all feels very very fresh and raw because it's literally traumatic and amazing at the same time like I really yeah it's really brought up so many feelings and yeah again it's it's a it's a it's quite an ablest inaccessible

world and system ultimately but there's been so many amazing things as well and I'm so so th like my distri distributed conic have been so amazing and I'm so thrilled that we've done yes properly accessible screenings and prioritized that that's so important to me yeah thank you um did any of you want to also talk about this um Ted did you I lost you for a minute there I'm on an iPad it's just um no I haven't had that much experience so I'm making a a picture this year so a lot of my uh screeni

ngs and stuff have been short films um but you know I just to reiterate what um Ella was saying about anxiety and stuff I think how you present yourself and how you present your identity as well on stage is always kind of daunting because I don't know whether to sign or to speak you know I'm conscious about who am I addressing in the audience you know you want to represent you know you want to be accessible um yeah it's it's interesting because I don't go to festivals that much because they're u

sually not at Festival they just like the subtitles or the speaks the speakers so going to festivals is is still kind of new to me it's amazing I love going to them but it's um yeah It's Tricky It's Tricky it's like it's just small things like you know everyone's different but just like where The Interpreter is positioned in a talk is makes me feel kind of anxious because I it looks like I'm not listening to anyone else on on the panel it's just I'm just looking AC see and all these amazing peop

le are talking and so yeah it's a very exposed and visible place but I think it's getting better I think everyone's making much more effort now to to make these places accessible a long way to go but like Sundance London um Netflix recently we just launched stuff and they've been really really supportive but um yeah good yeah no it does it does seem to be changing and improving um Justin do you do you thought yeah I mean I I think it's completely true that presenting a film uh you know is terrif

ying and it's um especially if you have mental health issues you know and uh you know certainly had anxiety um when doing that and and kind of um P panic attacks and things like that and loss of uh loss of thread Etc you know during q&as and talks and um especially you know earlier on but I think much like what Ella said you kind of get used to it don't you you know after a while um but it was interesting what everybody was saying actually because it reminded me not so much about presenting the

film but um when I shot my first film you know was really punishing schedule we did six six day weeks um really really hard work and one morning I just had a huge panic attack you know and can go to set and and I remember somebody saying to well don't don't tell the completion bond company because they'll just fire you off the film you know uh that that was like 23 years ago 24 years ago so I'm very glad to say you know that in that nearly quarter of a century things have really changed and you

just wouldn't be allowed to do that now and I think it's the same same um you know if you demystify mental health uh a bit more which which we all are doing continually you know and and things are getting a lot better mental health awareness is getting a lot better uh then it makes uh the notion of you know having a panic attack or or what have you in the middle of a Q&A kind of a lot more um understandable a lot less scary you know because people kind of say oh okay whatever he's having a panic

attack in the middle of his Q&A that's but that's okay uh so again it comes down to the social model I guess doesn't it a good old social model you know and the fact that we we're more accepted by Society uh then it makes our lives just that much easier um across the board yeah definitely thank thank you Justin um Jesse do you want to say anything um yeah I was just gonna add just a couple of musings one was just about um time and how time often operates in a different kind of way I think when

you're disabled and that can kind of be in lots of different ways for different people whether it's like in a more day-to-day or um like for me I think what I'm having at the moment which is quite difficult is you know thinking around when to release my film and what sort of Festival circuit to try and kind of I suppose get into um and it's I guess the lead UPS to it and the sort of you know for me it's like I have to say oh my god well if it's 2025 then by you know like and then you're sort of

like it's just a very can be very hard to try and explain to people that like for them 2025 might just be 2025 whereas to me that's like what if I'm dead what if I'm on a different treatment and that means that I can't travel and I've missed the whole thing or um so I think that's something that plays on my mind mind like a lot um which I think is probably quite hard to understand um for some people and the other thing I was just thinking was about the Forgotten sea and how we were very very cle

ar in that it was like I was like our audience is people shielding that is who this is for um so there's just no way that we're going to do anything other than do a big release on YouTube online and do it as an online event um and it was amazing and it was just the most magical sort of distribution kind of thing even though it's obviously now I know more you know that is almost a bit like mad to just be like we're just going to put it on YouTube that's what we're going to do and then ruin any ki

nd of Premier status um but I often think about it and think how I need to try and remember that and not get sucked up into the industry kind of thing and I feel like often you get asked these questions about audience like do you want an industry audience do you want to win award WS do you want to go to the or do you want you know like your the community and impact and it's like I want both but like sometimes those two things feel maybe a bit in congruous um but yeah I think it's remembering who

your film is for and Par yeah and particularly if that is the disabled Community what that then means in terms of distribution yeah absolutely thank you so much everyone um before we before we end we have a couple of questions in the audience I just want to make sure that we get we get time to to ask them um I think what's probably best of these since we've only got about eight minutes left um is that um I I just ask them and then if you want to respond to them then then um go ahead so the firs

t one is from Connor and it's what resources are available or that you would recommend for those with smaller budgets either in production or exhibition to make the practice as accessible as possible so it's it's about accessibility on a on a budget this question I think that's correct yeah so what resources um would you would you suggest um for those for people who are working on a smaller budget to help to help with accessibility yeah I mean it's quite difficult isn't it sometimes because you

know um BSL interpreters cost money because they do a fantastic job and um uh you know so to make something fully accessible is difficult because of course there is a diversity of disability as well you know and a whole range of accessibility features you know that screen content needs to be truly accessible and um so it's one of those kind of how long is a piece of string questions but I think there are ways of we you know we've been I like to think quite ingenious about this sort of thing at 1

04 films know where we um we will try and um uh do do stuff on a budget if we can and there are you know my last film very similar to the film that was on earlier I did the audio description myself you know and um so you don't have to pay an actor you don't have to get a script done you don't have to pay somebody like um one of the big audio description companies you can do captioning with software you know with AI now it's really really it's not perfect obviously but it's pretty good um but the

re there are ways you can you can make work accessible I think on a budget and yeah it comes down to time again you know um time is an accessibility Factor you know and if you got the time to do it yourself brilliant and the resources I mean I'm a complete Lite have no technical knowledge but still manage to um make stuff accessible where where there's a will there's there's a way I'd say you know and it's just creative thinking we're all creatives we made films you know and um it's been creativ

e with your accessibility as well and I think also obviously it might not be if it's a budget from a funer I think it's lobbying and pressuring them to actually give you an excess budget because they should do if it's something that's like self-funded and that's why it's harder then I do feel like intention goes a long way that like and maybe it is just being honest and being like look we might not be able to get everything we might not be able to do this perfectly but we do have the intention t

o do it as best as possible and could you cuz I think think that can actually go a long way for at least making people be able to make an informed decision about whether it's going to be accessible enough for them and at least show that you care rather than just sort of pretending like if you just don't do it then it will just go away yeah definitely thank you um and then the other question that we have is from Joanne is quite a good one to sort of move towards the end of our conversation um whi

ch is these conversations are so important but do you ever look forward to a future where these discussions become redundant or less needed I think uh not really I mean yes in theory I want that to be the future it is sad in a sense that we have to have these conversations I always say like my my documentary really all I wanted to do as it is to humanize disabled people which like it just shouldn't be rocket science that we are human and should be treated like humans so in a sense it's sad but a

lso it's really fun to feel like you're making work and having conversations that have the power to like you know CH change change things change the world so I I try to enjoy the process and hope that one day things are different but on a personal level whatever I'm I'm yeah I'm enjoying the process yeah and I think debate's really important isn't it you know and and actually you know we're talking about disability cinemar in a certain way at the moment but what is the next thing you know what's

the next exciting idea and exciting concept that um that somebody will come up with you know I really look forward to that I think we only get there through through debate and discussions you know and certainly the discussions we're having now are very different to the discussions we're having 20 years ago you know where it's like revolutionary to have a de guy in Four Weddings and a funeral you know 30 years ago that this isn't it you know as incredible feet of representation for some reason y

ou know and now you know it's commonplace so what what are we going to be doing in you know 25 30 years time it's exciting is it yeah I feel like I think what I am maybe looking for it would be I feel like we've kind of done it tonight though but like it would be nice I think to get to a place where because I think sometimes what I worry about is that people think that access is like you know they just think of things like making like very important things like having a ramp but also it's like i

t's so much more than that and that is just the absolute should be just the bare minimum like of just making sure that places are physically accessible and that actually there's I don't know like a whole world of kind of access that can be explored that is really exciting and radical and and like extends itself into changing the world in a big way um and I think it would be good to talk about in yeah like in those terms I think and about how it intersects with all different kind of marginalized

communities um yeah which I think is get like I do feel like that's happening um but not fast enough I think just to Echo what everyone said I think it's kind of two things my saying that for yourself you kind of just want to get on with it you want to to just just to get on with the work but I think as the industry and our society becomes more inclusive and more diverse and we kind of you know film and Cinema and TV kind of celebrate you know The Human Condition in all its forms these discussio

ns will be less Niche and it'll be more kind of mainstream you know that audience and and and and filmmakers from all wats of life can have these discussions in the bigger Arenas you know it's like there there'll always be you know uh pockets of people you know on the fringes but I think hopefully if if what everyone is saying and and and committed to happen I think it would be more commonplace and less exciting it is isn't it I mean I think we're not too far away really from having you know you

know a Best Director who is disabled standing at the Kodak Theater you know the Oscars picking up a you know a shiny little man I think it's um it's really not far off hopefully it's one of you guys uh but I I think that's totally you know the next step really you know that's um becoming the mainstream he wants to be mainstream happy where we are thank you so much everyone um yeah that that felt like an excellent place to sort of end this of course we could all talk for for many hours but um th

ank you so much for for joining me and thank you everyone uh watching for for coming along as well um keep these conversations going um thanks very much thanks lyan thanks everyone