Reflections on the Disability Film Challenge

By Kennedy Dawson Healy

Earlier this month, Crip Crap and a team of volunteer collaborators participated in the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge. Founded in 2014, the film challenge aims to change the ways stories about disability are told and open doors and provide exposure to disabled people in the film industry. We had 5 days to create a 5 minute film under the theme superhero. Before the contest began, we assembled a team of writers, actors, a director, editor, and graphic designer. Most of our team were people with disabilities. On the morning the challenge started we were given the additional criteria of an unsung or anti-hero.

I quickly had to shed my perfectionist tendencies (no doubt from trauma of often being the only visibly disabled person in a room and feeling like I need to prove something). We wrote the script in 5 hours on the first day of the challenge. Our film focused on a blind superhero who can only get ableist news coverage, if any (watch it above!). We then spent 2 days filming, 1 day creating audio descriptions and organizing footage, and 2 days editing. I loved watching the passion of our team to perfect their crafts in the allotted time as I’d nudge people on to the next task. I was almost able to hang on to my new found not perfectionist ideology, until my very tiered self agonized over punch lines we had written having to be cut in the final day of editing.

The time constraints of the film challenge brought pressure, but not as much as constraints placed on the industry by funders. It is not uncommon to hear about film and TV sets with ridiculously long days with little to no breaks. Productions can run months without days off. The best way to break into these settings is through the physical labor of being a Production Assistant. And they wonder why there are so few disabled people in the industry. Then there is always the excuse that they can’t find us. An excuse that organizations like ours, the film challenge, C Talent, and 1IN4 Coalition are countering.

The best part of the challenge, in the end, has been watching many of the 95 films that were submitted and smiling at the crip glory of it all. You can view them all here! There is affirmation in knowing that groups around the world came together to counter a toxic industry, answering our own yearning to create a world where no one has to set themselves on fire to tell their story or see themselves represented.