Written by Tasnia Habib
The Superfest Disability Film Festival will take place online from October 16th through 18th. Superfest is the longest running disability film festival in the world. It started in 1970 in Los Angeles, and is now hosted by Paul K. Longmore Institute for Disability in San Francisco. Superfest screens films that portrays disability through a diverse, complex, unabashed and engaging lens. “We’re screening films either made by people with disabilities or for people with disabilities,” said Emily Beitikis, the Co-director of Superfest.
Tickets for this year’s Superfest are being sold on a sliding scale on FilmFreeway, including an option for a free ticket. The tickets will grant access to all film screenings and panel discussions. Tickets can be purchased here: https://filmfreeway.com/Superfest/tickets.
All films will be screened with the audio descriptions and embedded captions. Ticket holders can choose to view films with or without audio descriptions. All panel discussions will feature American Sign Language. This year, Superfest will have deaf interpreters rather than hearing interpreters. According to Beitikis, having deaf interpreters increases the quality of sign language for deaf participants significantly.
Below are a few films to check out during the festival. The full line-up can be found here: .http://www.superfestfilm.com/2020-films.
The God Given Talent
70 min., Feature Film
Disability Justice Award for Charles Blackwell
Logline: Blind Oakland poet, painter, playwright and teacher Charles Curtis Blackwell had a challenging upbringing in California and Mississippi. This sensitive documentary explores his current creative life rooted in loss, love, pain, and redemption.
High Flying Jade
22 min., Documentary Short
Best of Festival: Documentary
Logline: Follow the true story of a bi-polar American white woman who tries to manage her unique brain chemistry by running away to join the circus in Hồ Chí Minh City.
Verisimilitude
14 min., Dramatic Short
Best of Festival: Narrative
Logline: A narrative short about an unemployed disabled actress who takes a job to advise an up-and-coming British film star on how to be disabled for his latest role. But will he win an award?
The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating
15 min., Dramatic Short
Innovation in Craft Award
Logline: When a woman is bedridden by a mysterious pathogen, a forest snail unexpectedly takes up residence on her nightstand. Together, they share an intimate journey of survival and resilience in this live-action true story, adapted from the award-winning memoir of the same title.