Email us with your comments and feedback. Some films contain adult language/challenging themes.
Mind the Time. Ruairi Conaghan. UK (Northern Ireland). 2022. 59m. Film Festival Premiere. In English with English captions. FFF, DD. Twelve uniquely personal and potent memories from learning-disabled actors’ own life experience and supporting cast. An emotional, funny, mischievous, and joyful showcase of personalities and recollections. Exploring both the light and darkness we are all capable of seeing inside ourselves, dreaming big and capturing the magic of being on stage.
SHORT FILMS PROGRAMME The programme has now ended but you can see the film details below.
Unbound. Jemima Hughes. UK. 2021. 2m 57s. Film Festival Premiere. In English with English captions. FF, DDD. Unbound is a lively and colourful three-minute abstract animation which presents the filmmaker’s feelings about being perceived as “wheelchair bound” and her positive experience of physically exciting activities such as dancing and zip wiring. It combines cut-out animation in hand-painted watercolour paper with digital effects, using colours, shapes and movement inspired by Kandinsky’s paintings to express emotion. The director’s voice-over, spoken on her electronic communication aid and subtitled, describes her experiences. Jazz-inspired music composed for the film reflects the motion and excitement of the activities.
Captured Moments. Mark Hemsworth. UK. 2022. 4m 8s. Festival Premiere. In English with English captions. DD. Mark Hemsworth explores how specific landscapes change over time – from morning to evening, and season to season. Mark has an archive of tens of thousands of photographs of these landscapes across seasons, which span many years. For this project, Hemsworth has narrowed his focus to selected specific sites, which he has revisited across seasons starting in early 2022 through to early Autumn.
My Cameras. Lucy Skuce. UK. 5m 37s. 2022. English captions. FFF, DDD. Lucy Skuce’s project is based on her dual obsessions: recording her first-person experience of the world and redundant technologies. Utilising mixed technology, from a 1980s VHS camcorder (which was the first kind of camera Skuce owned) through to a contemporary 4k camera, Skuce documents her relationship with her hometown of Didcot using both new and archival footage to create a sense of fractured and condensed time.
Lucy’s film is part of the Captured Moments exhibition at Modern Art Oxford in November 2022. Both Lucy Skuce and Mark Hemsworth are lens-based artists with learning disabilities, and their works for Capture Moments share an interest in documenting spans of time and exploring the meanings these have for the artists.
Dreamscapes. Shadowlight Artist group production. UK. 2m 38s. 2022. Festival Premiere. No Dialogue. DDD. The Shadowlight Artists group explored the work of surrealist artists and their creations. The group then worked together at Film Oxford to bring their own surreal dreams and nightmares to life, using a mix of green-screen filming and animated drawings.
Futurism. Shadowlight Artist group production. UK. 2022. 2m 40s. Festival Premiere. No Dialogue. DDD. The Shadowlight Artists group explored the work of Futurism movement of the early 20th Century, which is a vision of the future as seen by artists who lived in that time period. The group then worked together at Film Oxford to create a film inspired by Futurism artworks, using a mix of green-screen filming and animated drawings.
The Body is a House of Familiar Rooms. Samuel Geiger. Eloise Sherrid. Lauryn Welch. USA. 2021. 10m. Festival Premiere. In English with English captions. F, D. In association with SuperFest. A magical-realist window into a man’s experience of chronic illness, mixing paintings with live-action documentary footage to explore his inner world and relationship with his partner.
Who did you meet in the woods? Sterre Ploeger. UK. 2021. 13m 29s. Film Festival Premiere. In English with English captions. FF, D. Sterre goes for a walk in the woods during lockdown. She meets Orlando in the wood and attempts to make friends with him, but Orlando refuses. Inspired by Orlando’s poetry hanging from the trees Sterre uses her sign poems to engage with him and forges a friendship through poetry.
Limbo. Barak Drori. Israel. 2022. 9m 27s. European Premiere. In Hebrew with English captions. F, D. At a point where he is on the verge of losing the last thread of sight he has left, Adam tries to process his loss. The future is grim. Non-existent. Literally. Will he give life a chance? Or give in and give up.
First Step Swim. Caitlin McMullan. UK. 2021. 7m. Film Festival Premiere. No Dialogue. F, D. Delving into deep water, a disabled woman finds a sense of wholeness.
Autumn Leaves. Jemima Hughes. UK. 2021. 1m 25s. Film Festival Premiere. No Dialogue. FF, DD. Autumn Leaves was created to reflect transition in the natural world, for a themed exhibition of creative work by Touchbase members. It is a stop-motion animation made with pressed autumn leaves, with music composed for the film.
Return to the Together! 2022 Disability Film Festival Programme