The Together! 2025 Disability Film Festival screened 50+ films from 10 countries in 12 themed programmes from 6-7 December 2025. Our Kat Awards are made each year in memory of artist-filmmaker Katherine Arianello. The 2025 winners are…
Best Film about Accessibility
Beyond Each Frame. Andres Hernandez Machado. France. 2023. 18:06. D. What is an audio description ? When filmmaker Auguste and his editor Grégoire face a Festival rejection over a missing audio description, their race to fix it leads them to Delphine, whose unique approach to cinema challenges everything they thought they knew about film. As they work against the clock, the newly formed team discovers that audio description is more than just a technicality, it is a powerful storytelling tool that reveals the unseen and redefines how blind people can experience cinema.
Best Animated Film
The Flight of Ellen Bird. Seana Kozar. Canada. 2025. 5:55s. D. F. World Premiere. Animated entirely by hand using paint-on-glass stop motion, The Flight of Ellen Bird is a modern reinterpretation of the medieval story of “Burd Ellen.” Ellen lost her shadow and was trapped in Faerie, unable to tell her story until she was rescued by her youngest brother, Roland. In this retelling, Ellen is a disabled woman who feels trapped by silence and invisibility in her own world until she figures out how to tell her story and free herself. The film features original choreography by the filmmaker’s daughter.
Best Artists Film
Senses. Adrean Mangiardi, Mark Levin. US. 4:36. DD. Mark Levin’s poem “Senses” explores the idea that our perceptions and sensory experiences may not reflect reality as we believe. It questions the reliability of what we see, hear, and feel, suggesting that our understanding of the world is shaped by illusions or misconceptions. Through reflective and thought-provoking language, Levin challenges viewers to reconsider how they interpret their surroundings and the truth behind their senses.
Best Comedy Film
Misfit. Tristan Zerbib. France. 2024. 13:15s. D. In a world where being disabled is the norm, wheelchair-ball is the world’s number one sport. A player is caught off guard when she is obliged to train with a ‘valid’ person.
Best Dance Film
Our Circle in the Storm. Ray Jacobs/Arty Party. UK. 2025. FF. DDD. 9:41. A dance film by Arty Party, featuring a cast of dancers with and without disabilities. It explores what it means to be together while the world changes all around us and reflects on the importance of togetherness and connection in a time of climate change, and the thin veil between our comfort inside and the changing world beyond. A group of climate refugees have made a home of an abandoned house. They live, cook, laugh, cry, eat, dance and rest together, feeling like a family inside, while feeling vulnerable to the hostile climate outside.
Best Documentary
Alamesa: everyone has a seat. Pablo Aulita. Argentina. 2025. 29:50. DD. UK Premiere. Can a group of neurodiverse young people carry out a first-class gastronomic project? In ALAMESA, the participants will challenge their own limits, facing the challenge of not using fire, knives, or scales.
Best Drama
Where The Light Gets In. Clare-Louise English. UK. 2025. 27:44. FF. D. A Deaf mum’s anxiety threatens to overwhelm her, as it affects her relationships with those she loves, she risks losing her son.
Best First Film
The Secret Life Of Bryan Adam, Birds, Bacon Butties and Cake… and Bond.Oliver Hellowell. UK. 2025. 27m. D.World Premiere. Oliver Hellowell is a young nature and wildlife photographer with Down Syndrome. Having successfully published a selection of photography books he decided he wanted to direct his first short film, meeting his hero TV wildlife presenter Iolo Williams as they go to Wales in search of a bird he has never seen before, the Black Grouse.
Best Film in a Language other than English
Echoes Between Land and Blue Sky: The Lives of Mongolian Deaf Nomads. Itgel Byambadorj and Dulamsuren Jigjid. Mongolia. 2025. 30:36. D.F. UK Premiere. Deaf Nomads is a colour and part–black-and-white documentary, with some animation, presented in spoken Mongolian, Mongolian Sign Language, and English subtitles. The film follows Deaf herders across Dornod, Khentii, and Uvurkhangai as they navigate climate change, isolation, and the preservation of cultural identity. Through four interlinked acts, it highlights resilience, cultural heritage, and the lives of an often overlooked community.