Raising Films recommends, as part of our DDA season to mark the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, the following films…
Sound of Metal
Due for release in spring 2021
2h 10min
Director: Darius Marder
Ruben (Riz Ahmed) and Lou (Olivia Cooke) live together, two nomads traveling gig to gig on an endless American tour. Their music is loud, frenzied and passionate, until one day Ruben is overwhelmed by a severe ringing in his ears, which quickly gives way to deafness. Ruben is suddenly overcome by anxiety, depression, and soon enough his past addictions begin to surface. Ruben checks himself into a home for deaf addicts run by an eccentric deaf veteran, Joe. In this world of silence and under Joe’s tough, observant care, Ruben must confront himself more honestly than ever before. But the love and sound of his old life echoes in Ruben’s mind, calling for him to return…
“One of the film’s best features is its refusal to indulge in triumph-of-the-human-spirit clichés that so often weigh down disability narratives.” The Wrap
The Reason I Jump
Due for release in spring 2021
1h 22min
Director: Jerry Rothwell
Based on the best-selling book by Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump is an immersive cinematic exploration of neurodiversity through the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people from around the world. The film blends Higashida’s revelatory insights into autism, written when he was just 13, with intimate portraits of five remarkable young people. It opens a window for audiences into an intense and overwhelming, but often joyful, sensory universe.
“While no film can replicate human experience, my hope is that THE REASON I JUMP can encourage an audience into thinking about autism from the inside, recognising other ways of sensing the world, both beautiful and disorientating. I hope the film takes audiences on a journey through different experiences of autism, leaving a strong sense of how the world needs to change to become fully inclusive.” Jerry Rothwell (director)
BACK CATALOGUE/LIBRARY TITLES
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
1h 48m
Directors: James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
A groundbreaking summer camp galvanises a group of teens with disabilities to help build a movement, forging a new path toward greater equality.
In the early 1970s, teenagers with disabilities faced a future shaped by isolation, discrimination and institutionalisation. Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp ‘for the handicapped’ in the Catskills (down the road from Woodstock) exploded those confines.
Romantic Comedy
1h 17m
Director: Elizabeth Sankey
Our most-loved romcoms are torn apart and scrutinised for their unrealistic pictures of male-female relationships and white, heterosexual, middle-class characters. Why does the woman always have to be saved by a man?
Helped by a diverse chorus of writers, actors, and filmmakers, and with original songs by her band Summer Camp, director Elizabeth Sankey embarks on a journey of investigation and self-discovery.
Verisimilitude
Short – part of Uncertain Kingdom
Director: David Proud
Producer: Justin Edgar
An unemployed disabled actress is frustrated at how all the disabled acting jobs go to able bodied actors. Out of work, she is engaged as an advisor to a spoilt up and coming British film star, showing him how to be disabled for his latest role. A role which might just win him a BAFTA…
Battle Lines
27m 55s
Director: Julian Peedle-Calloo
Producer: Justin Edgar
A Deaf man looks for acceptance in his local community when he is prevented from serving in World War I.
Can he find a way to win people over, or will he continue to feel like an outcast?
Special People
13min
Director: Justin Edgar
A filmmaker enrols five disabled teenagers for a film project about the ‘struggle’ they go through every day. He takes them out to countryside and is determined to create a piece of ‘pity porn’, but his collaborators are sick of being treated differently. A humorous encapsulation of the ongoing fight for rounded and authentic representation of disabled characters in film and television.
Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
1h 30m
Director: Kirby Dick
Award-winning documentary about masochist performance artist Bob Flanagan. Flanagan became interested in masochism as a way of helping manage and ease the pain of cystic-fibrosis, and subsequently explored the possibilities of masochism in his performance work.
This challenging film stands as one of the most powerful and controversial documentaries of its time as it follows Bob and his partner Sheree Rose through the last years of Flanagan’s life.
More from our DDA season
David Proud on moving from acting to filmmaking (DDA season)
As part of our series of articles to mark the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act Raising Films spoke to David Proud about his experience of moving from actor to filmmaking, the challenges [...]
The Watch: DDA season
Raising Films recommends, as part of our DDA season to mark the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, the following films... Sound of Metal Due for release in spring 2021 2h [...]