Meet Liz Pritchard. When Liz was diagnosed with autism and mental health disabilities, she turned to creating comic books and painting as a way to express her feelings. Art became her superpower, taking Liz around the world and giving her the opportunity to help others in her community. This is a 100% PWD production. In addition to her on-screen role, Liz did all of the editing and all art featured is her original art. She also co-directed/co-produced/co-wrote with Anna. Anna has Cerebral Palsy, which is the best-in-class of the palsies. 

Type: Short film

Duration:20’

Language: Russian

Subtitles: English

Directors: Olga Koleva

Producers: Anastasia Muntyan, Mila Solovyeva, Yulia Pereverzeva

Country: Russian Federation

A pregnant woman discovers that the child she is expecting, according to the medical
analyses is very likely to be with a genetic disorder. Struggling with her own fears and doubts, as well as with the prejudices of the society, Maria faces the hard choice – to give or not the right to life of her special child.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 11’

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Directors: Jared Jacobsen

Production: Suzanne Bacon

Country:USA

A man with a rare physical disability makes films that focus on the social aspects of being a minority.

Type: Short film

Duration:17’

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Directors: Jim Mcmorrow

Production: Leo Mc Guigan

Country: Ireland

Based on a true story. Stephen, a young man with Down’s Syndrome wishes to break
free from his caring but over-protective mother and celebrate his 18th birthday in the way that he chooses.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 27’ 14’’

Language: English

Subtitles: --

Directors: Nina Ross

Production: Nina Ross, Nancy Willis

Country: United Kingdom

As a child Nancy Willis dreamt of joining the circus, longing for freedom and adventure. Diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and a prognosis not to live beyond her twenties, the now 65-year-old artist invites us into her world. Combining hard hitting memories of societal discrimination with the depth and beauty of everyday moments, she opens up about vulnerability, self-exploration, family and maternity. This is a stark reminder of the treatment of disabled people, but also a remarkable story of a woman who refused to be broken by society’s limited expectations of her. The narrative meanders seamlessly between the grounded and the dream- like. A rich tapestry of artwork, observation and archive, illustrates the challenges of physical deterioration, but also the infinite possibilities of imagination.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 8’

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: Greek and English

Directors: Christopher Sánchez, Mario Cervantes

Production: Christopher Sánchez, Mario Cervantes

Country: Spain

Javier is deaf-blind but he is willing to live the adventure and climb to the top to fulfill his dream: to embrace the stars.

Type:Short film

Duration: 15’

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English

Directors: Jonay Garcia

Production: JairoLópez, DomingoJ., González, JonayGarcía

Country:Spain

Laura is a sexual assistant for people with functional diversity. Her boyfriend, Marco, is desperate to find work to change the situation. Perhaps the only thing all we need is a little affection to feel alive.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 20’

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English

Directors: Juan Pedro Sabina

Production: Yaiza Afonso Higuera

Country:Spain

Four women, four different disabilities respond to five concepts that are part of their lives: sexuality, freedom, walking, women and darkness. Their voices are defining what they are, inviting the viewer to enter a special world, that of women with disabilities.

Type: Documentary

Duration:1h 13’

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English and Greek

Directors: Julio Suárez

Producers: LGC Films

Country: Spain

One more year is the particular portrait of the painter Paco Bernal, decided in spite of the adversities that are presented and their different abilities, to celebrate his 54th birthday party. Paco Bernal has one more chromosome in PAR 21 that makes him a unique individual, with a unique appearance, personality and abilities. And the film proposes to analyze: what makes us different? Our qualities or our physical trait?

Type: Documentary

Duration: 14’ 5’’

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Directors: Arin Paul

Country: India

A look into the life of social worker affected by Muscular Dystrophy, Shri S. Sankara Raman. A man who is one of the pioneers in creating a cross-disability movement in India, encouraging people with different disabilities to work on common and collective solutions.

Type: Documentary

Duration:1h 17’ 28’’

Language:Slovenian

Subtitles:English

Directors: Rok Matić

Producers: Martina Piskač

Country: Slovenia

The film presents the life of Martina Piskač from her early childhood, teenage years, youth and motherhood to her mature age when she became a ______. Martina has spinal muscular atrophy. Despite numerous negative prognoses, she managed to shape for herself an active lifestyle and achieve equality according to her desires and ambitions. Her difficult and progressing physical disability put her into an electric wheelchair, but personal assistance now allows her to live independently. She can't even lift her arm, but she lives to the fullest, in the real sense of the word. The film l live breaks down the prejudice that life is unexceptional and bare, less creative and less playful and proves that will, reason and yearning have no limit. Especially due to her disability, Martina knows very well how precious life is, as she stared death in the face many times and has so far always beaten it. She looks at her life with a touch of irony and self-irony, which is often the way to make it through the most difficult moments. The documentary I live was made entirely in its own production, without any external funds and donations.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 1h 20’

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English

Directors: Sergio Morkin

Producers: Sergio Morkin

Country: Mexico

Maricarmen Graue (52) is a cello player; she plays with a rock band, as well as in a chamber orchestra. She is also a music teacher, a writer, and a marathon runner. She lives alone and is completely blind. She copes with her condition by having a biting sense of humor and being fiercely self-demanding. Swaying between laughter and a bare-boned meditation on the act of living, the documentary navigates the labyrinths surrounding a survivor.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 1h 18’ 25’’

Language: Croatian

Subtitles: English

Directors: Danilo - Lola Ilić

Producers: Danilo - Lola Ilić

Country: Croatia

Despite all the difficulties that life has put before him, Erik thinks nothing is impossible and composes, sings, and performs. His compositions have won numerous awards, and the strength and cheerfulness of his spirit is enchanting.

Type: Documentary, Experimental, Music Video, Short, Other

Duration: 16’ 14’’

Language: English, Vietnam

Subtitles: No words

Director: Julia Metzger-Traber and Davide De Lillis

Country: Germany

It has been more than forty years since the Vietnam War. Yet, its toxic remnants are not fading. Dancing between waking and dreaming, "Rhizophora" follows eleven Vietnamese youth, with disabilities caused by Agent Orange, on a whimsical and intimate journey through their day. As the film progresses we are welcomed ever deeper into their richly symbiotic world. “Rhizophora” was conceived of and realized in a collaborative process between the featured group of residents and the Berlin based performing arts duo ¿Che.Ne.So?. It is both a meditation on the lasting impact of war as well as an ode to the power of life, which can flourish in even the most toxic of circumstances.

Type: Short film

Duration: 4’ 06’’

Subtitles: No words

Directors: Davide De Lillis, Julia Metzger-Traber

Country: Germany

In this Video-poem eleven young residents of the Friendship Village in Vietnam who are living with disabilities caused by Agent Orange dance their way from waking to dreaming. As their movements grow with humor and vulnerability we are welcomed ever deeper into their magical world.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 50’ 35’’

Language: Greek

Subtitles : English

Director: Xenia Tsilochristou

Producer: Xenia Tsilochristou

Country: Greece

Lend An Ear, the first documentary for Greek Deaf Community. Hearing impairment, a physical inability of the sense of hearing, defines a culture that remains alive and strong into a world full of sounds. Shared experiences, narrated by deaf and hearing people, create an unexplored reality to many of us.

Type:Documentary

Duration:37’20’’

Language: Italian

Subtitles: English

Director : Inmediazione

Producer: Inmediazione

Country: Italy

In this Video-poem eleven young residents of the Friendship Village in Vietnam who are living with disabilities caused by Agent Orange dance their way from waking to dreaming. As their movements grow with humor and vulnerability we are welcomed ever deeper into their magical world.

Type: Documentary

Duration:54’47’’

Language: Dutch

Subtitles: English

Director : JuulSchöpping, Britt Engel

Producer: JuulSchöpping, Britt Engel

Country: Netherlands

Laura never believed she would become an artist. But when her daughter spoke in amazement about her first painting, she gained enough confidence to make it her profession. Laura tries to put her images on canvas using her hands as a brush. However, Laura doesn't see like we do. In 2007, she lost her sight and with it parts of her freedom. Despite the obstacles she encounters in her daily life, her visualisations motivate her to keep painting. This is Laura’s way to connect herself with the world around her.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 15’

Language: Portuguese

Subtitles: English

Directors: Inês Luís

Producers: Inês Alegre

Country: Portugal

Six actors carrying an intellectual disability face the challenge that is the world of acting during the rehearsals for a theatre play. The film is a portrait of their reactions to the emotional stimuli brought on by the rehearsals, and by the evolution of their characters, until the opening night of the play “You Should Have Stayed Home, You Morons”

Type: Short, Other

Duration: 4’ 3’’

Language: No text

Subtitles: No text

Directors: Ray Jacobs

Producers: Arty Party

Country: United Kingdom

The filmed solos, made by the performers during intensive residencies in the woods, reflect each disabled performer’s unique experience, and relationship to the wild.

Type: Documentary, Music Video, Short

Duration: 13’ 45’’

Language: English

Subtitles: Greek

Directors: Vijay S. Jodha

Producers: Centre For Social Communication, UNESCO

Country: France

A collaboration between Austin based all ability dance company Body Shift and Merge dance company filmed at the Austin Public Library.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 37’ 55’’

Language: Italian

Subtitles: Greek

Directors: Carla Pampaluna

Producers: Poliedro di Arnera Società Cooperativa Sociale, Progetto Solidarietà di Arci SolidarietàValdera, Azul Teatro

Country: Italy

The history of Boom! Theater company made by disabled and non-disabled people from workshops to theater performances.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 18’ 30’’

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English

Directors: Claudia Castellán, Huayra Bello

Producers: Claudia Castellán, Huayra Bello

Country: Guatemala

In January 2020, the Women with the Ability to Dream in Color [Mujeres con Capacidad de Soñar a Colores] collective and the METOCA organization conducted the first Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory exclusively for women with disabilities. In Sololá, Guatemala, using their creativity, complicity, pleasure and collective strength, this group starts to break their silence and change a history of exclusion and violence legitimated by the state, the system and society at large.

Type: Documentary, Short

Duration: 8’ 12’’

Language: Slovenian

Subtitles: English

Directors: Maëlia Lenoir, Linda Fernandes, Maja Šubarić, Katsiaryna Drobysh

Producers: Tom Gomizelj

Language: Slovenia

Blaž has the down syndrome. During the week he works at the restaurant Second violin (Druga violina) in Ljubljana. Film was made during the international documentary film workshop organized by Luksuz produkcija in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Type: Animation

Duration: 5’

Language: German

Subtitles: English and Greek

Directors: Valentin Riedl, FrédéricSchuld

Producers: Fabian Driehorst

Language: Germany

As a child, Carlotta didn’t expect the people around here to have faces. She even doesn’t recognize her own face. Years later, she learns about a rare, untreatable deficit of her brain. It was art, after all, that offered her a way to finally recognize herself.

Type: Animation

Duration: 4’ 47’’

Language: German

Subtitles: English

Directors: Eliah Lüthi

Producers: Eliah Lüthi

Language: Germany

This movie is drawn with pencil and ink, grey on white. It tells a story about assisted living and how quickly – in the perception of others – one can shift from a peer to someone who cannot be trusted or taken seriously. It tells this story on the example of a fellow student of mine. Their percpeption of me shifted rapidly, when they found out, that I was – at this time – dependent on assisted living. One moment, I was a person to share future plans, dreams and visions with. In the next moment, I wasn’t event trusted to decide for myself, if I want to have potato salad or not. It is as well a story about turning away from harmful external ascription and finding support in other places.

Type: Animation

Duration: 2’ 49’’

Language: English

Subtitles: -

Directors: Cameron Carr

Producers:CameronCarr

Country: United Kingdom

"Strange" is an autobiographical story told in a visual journal style, a glimpse into an autistic author’s life exploring friendship, trails and the use of unique coping strategies.

Type: Animation

Duration: 9’

Language: No text

Subtitles: -

Directors:AbelGoldfarb

Producers: Mundoloco, Gaston Gorali, Laura Plascenia

Country: Argentina

In this Video-poem eleven young residents of the Friendship Village in Vietnam who are living with disabilities caused by Agent Orange dance their way from waking to dreaming. As their movements grow with humor and vulnerability we are welcomed ever deeper into their magical world.

Type: Animation

Duration: 4’ 40’’

Language: No text

Subtitles: -

Directors: Stephen Featherstone

Producers: Stephen Featherstone

Country: United Kingdom

Photographs of performers in a disabled and non-disabled dance company come to life. The individual artists dance out of the photos and across table tops until the whole company meet and perform in unison. Completed in 2016, this is a promotional film for Stopgap Dance Company.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 60’

Language: Russian

Subtitles: Greek

Directors: SiarheiIsakov

Producers: LeonidDinershtein

Country: Belarus

The film “Who is the last one?” directed by SiarheiIsakov tells about a phenomenon in a cultural life of Belarus, specifically about Family inclusive theatre “i”, where usual children act together with the special ones, autists, on the same stage. The film shows how teachers of Family inclusive theatre “i” - Irina Pushkareva, director and choreographer, Igor’ Sidorchik, stage director, and other young psychologists - work and unite children with different mental, physical and emotional needs. Thanks to the well-founded program, based on the concept of the inclusive theatrical study, children diagnosed with “autism spectrum disorder” master the ability to think and communicate in a flexible and creative manner. They manage to make friends, achieve impressive levels of talent development in the area of dramatic art, choreography and singing. Throughout the film a viewer meets four little characters: Kostya, Misha, Vlada and Maxim. Each of the children has their own history, some of them didn’t speak at the beginning, and some of them had problems with communication, motor skills, and movement. On the screen we see, how children study, practise hard in the theatre. None of them wants to be the last one around peers. A viewer gets an opportunity not only to watch the development of characters’ personalities, while each of them is gifted, but also to celebrate their progress. Film authors convince that special children can change and do this, wherein these changes are visible and important for a child even more, than for surrounding people.

Type: Documentary, Short

Duration: 3’55”

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Directors: Tal Anderson

Producers: Vickie Anderson, Tal Anderson

Country: United States

A short look at the life of a young autistic actor, this documentary investigates the effects isolation and the 2020 pandemic have had on her, using her cat to demonstrate that despite the circumstances, we can all reclaim unexpected joy in our lives if we put in the work and allow ourselves to discover the possibilities. The film was made over 3 days completely in quarantine with a 2-person crew and 1-person (and 1-cat cast). The subject of the film, Tal Anderson, is also the Writer, Director, Producer, and Editor of the film, and used archive footage and images of both her life and the life of her cat. Tal, who is also a successful professional actress, is also on the Autism spectrum.

Type: Documentary, Short
Duration: 5’25”
Language: English
Subtitles: Greek
Directors: Anna Pakman, Liz Pritchard
Producers: Anna Pakman, Liz Pritchard
Country: United States

Meet Liz Pritchard. When Liz was diagnosed with autism and mental health disabilities, she turned to creating comic books and painting as a way to express her feelings. Art became her superpower, taking Liz around the world and giving her the opportunity to help others in her community. This is a 100% PWD production. In addition to her on-screen role, Liz did all of the editing and all art featured is her original art. She also co-directed/ co-produced/ co-wrote with Anna. Anna has Cerebral Palsy, which is the best-in-class of the palsies.

Type: Short

Duration: 12’ 48’’

Language: Greek

Subtitles: English

Directors: DimitrisKatsimiris

Producers: DimitrisKatsimiris

Country: Greece

Marios, a young man with cerebral palsy, is waiting for his uncle, with his mother at home, to celebrate together his 22 nd birthday. But the arrival of his uncle, with his new girlfriend, will upset the family and create a suffocating atmosphere in the place.

Type: Student, Short

Duration: 5’

Language: Greek

Subtitles: English

Directors: Petra Stone (aka Terzi)

Producers: Petra Terzi

Country: Greece

"Dirty Roses" is a humanitarian docudrama and deals with the power of the soul of the disabled persons and individuals or families who came from the Arab world in Europe as war or economic or political refugees. Two extreme marginalized groups with the most helpless victims, the one of the countries of the third world with racial and ethnic minorities, and the second one is often socially degraded. Their common field is the hope, their love to dream and their struggle to live in freedom, the triptych of the motto "that which does not kill us makes us stronger"! The heroes of the short film, Nana the handicapped girl, Hassan the red roses' seller and Mirage an Iranian refugee, are not professional actors and they impersonate themselves. Several Afghani people who live with their children in a camp appear in the film. Efi Nichoriti made the adaptation of the monologue from Robert Schneider's theatrical play, "Dirt".

Type: Short

Duration: 9’ 26’’

Language: Greek

Subtitles: SDH subtitles

Directors: Seraphita Gregoriadou

Producers: Liminal

Language: Greece

In February of 2020 took place the first meeting of the lesson “Liminal Fantasia |Acting on Camera with Seraphita Gregoriadou. After the quarantine enforcement, due to COVID- 19, the lessons continued online until June and were completed with the production of this short film. In Sueño we watch the members of the mixed team of “Acting on Camera” during the quarantine. A sudden call and an invitation to a party will lead to a wild and strange night that a dog’s dream, Sueño’s, gets tangled with the dreams of the eight students and conscious meets subsconscious. The only thing for sure is that the team looks forward to dancing and they will, whether it is in a dream or in reality. With the online guidance from the lecturer and via teleconferencing, the group decided to film a short movie, with a script that they created all together. The rehearsal and the filming of the movie was held by the members of the group individually, with their own means and without physical contact.

Type: Experimental, Short, Other

Duration: 11’42”

Language: Greek

Subtitles: Greek SDH subtitles & AD

Directors: Costas Lamproulis

Producers: Synergy of Music Theatre (SMouTh),

Life Of Film Productions

Country: Greece

Confinement and exit. Privacy and public life. Alienation and reconnection. Everything passes through the non-place, under the shadow of the capital Π… A life-size door is set up at five key points of Larissa (Greece). Passers-by interact and a group of artists attempts improvised performances. The spontaneous stories that emerge challenge the present of the new reality.

Type: Short

Duration: 10’

Language: Greek

Subtitles: -

Directors: Dionusia Kopana

Production: Segregated Secondary School, Segregated high School - High School of Athens

Edit: Vaggelis Katsigiannis

Music: Amalia Valadorou, Spiros Mitrou, Marios Mpatsinski, Filothei Pantelidou

Country: Greece

The documentary’s topic that was chosen by the students themselves is about their life, their dreams, their experience from their school and social life. The students found the space and the proper “hug” so that they will be able to confess what hurts them, what they want to communicate with the “others”, their peers, the society they live in. Our goal was the equal participation of all the students from two schools. Conclusion emphasizes in the groups of students which are more likely to be marginalized and cut off from the school and wider community. Very often children from Special Education were judged hastily due to stereotypes as passive children, trapped in the medical model both in the design and the performance of similar educational actions. We placed them at the center of every action away from the separation given for decades by the medical model, which judges the abilities of every student based on his disability and instead we placed them in the social model where his abilities and needs are determined by the child himself and the others, interpersonal relationships are cultivated and the variety in class is always welcome.

Type: Experimental, Short

Duration: 4’ 1’’

Language: English

Subtitles: -

Directors: Ana Baer, Olivia

Producers: Baer Productions

Country: United States

A collaboration between Austin based all ability dance company Body Shift and Merge dance company filmed at the Austin Public Library.

Type: Animation

Duration: 29’ 36’’

Language: English, Italian

Subtitles: English

Directors: Rosa Canosa

Producers: Tekla

Country: Italy

Hannah, Nadenh and Aristide were born in different countries, they have disabilities and backgrounds of different kinds and yet – despite the limits supposedly imposed by their disability, but in fact imposed above all by our societies’ bias – all the three of them have become professional dancers, following a path of personal and professional growth full of difficulties and challenges, success and fulfilments. Dancing Towards Equality tells their story, in a journey between past and present.

Type: Documentary, short

Duration: 13’ 44’’

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Directors: Christopher Boulton

Producers: -

Country: United States

This intimate portrait of a weeklong integrated dance workshop for older adults explores 
how mixed abilities can create new forms. Echoing the central theme of expanding access to the arts, the film uses universal design standards to reach diverse audiences by including audio description for the visually impaired along with the option of English captions for the hearing impaired or subtitles for Spanish speakers.

Type: Short film
Duration: 11’ 35’’
Language: English, Serbian
Subtitles: -
Director: Marko Pejović
Producer: Grupa "Hajdeda..."
Country: Serbia

GLANCE is a short, inclusive dance film produced by the Group „Let’s….“ (which has ten years of experience working with people with disabilities in the context of the arts). The film was co-created by dancers (without and with disabilities -deaf and blind persons, and wheelchair user), choreographer and director who thought together about the choreography, the thematic framework and the structure of the film. The film is conceptually set as four intertwined dance lines, in which the first refers to an intimate self- eflected glance, the second a glance (from another perspective) of one's own helpless parts, and the third brings a glance of one's capacity to transcend the set frames. The fourth thematic line is about togetherness and thus represents an extension or broadening of perspective. Each of these sub-lines in the film is realized by a characteristic film procedure, so each topic has its own special film language.

Type: Documentary

Duration: 1h 24’

Language: German

Subtitles: Greek and English

Director: Lars Pape

Producer: Lars Pape, Loretta Stern, Holger Schürmann

Country: Germany

In 2019, a dance workshop for children with cerebral palsy takes place for the first time in Germany, more precisely at the Staats ballett Berlin. Leonie and Hannah, two girls with very different manifestations of this early childhood brain injury, embark on their first big dance adventure together with eight other children. But what is possible for children with physical and sometimes also cognitive restrictions? And then at one of the best dance theaters in the world - the Staats ballett Berlin? The children give an impressive answer. They dance. In their own special way. Dancing means being happy. And that happiness makes the documentary "You bet I dance!" through the irrepressible zest for life of the children and the noticeable love of the parents formally tangible.