“I have no mouth and I must scream”, said Harlan Ellison’s fantastic novel. I must scream, yes… or write, or sing, or dance, or play music, or swing the 100 metres freestyle, or climb mountains…
Or be an actor.
Because the International Film Festival on Disability is first and foremost a festival about cinema. It’s not about setting a catalogue or a collection of disabilities such as “disability from all angles” or “the disabled are among us”... (Sorry, I said “disabled” instead of “people with disabilities”. But do these people – because they’re essentially people – need politically correct, or do they need prostheses, help, all-terrain wheelchairs? Or do they need music, books, museums... movies?
The movies, the movies presented during the IFFD, are made by people – some disabled, yes –, about disabled people and most importantly with disabled people. We find quiet characters that are not necessarily mutes... Talkative people who are not necessarily bipolar... And artists... Or movies about artists, with artists, others with technicians... Firstly, movies: long, short, romantic comedies, philosophical tales, satires, dramas, cartoons – for children or not –, documentaries and fictions (and even science fiction!), and some gags in which we do not laugh at the disabled but with them.
To that extent, the encounter of Katia Martin-Maresco, film director herself, with young disabled film students was the first driving force of her commitment and the creation of the festival.
Ultimately, the keyword that guides us is: with...
CAZA
