Picture This: film festival aims to educate, entertain
Aggie Nyagari and Elspeth Waldie’s film The Unknown tells the story of a young Kenyan girl with cerebral palsy who is not only severely disabled but must live among villagers who think her disorders are the result of a curse.
The Kenyan film, one of dozens of international films that will screen at the Picture This ... Film Festival next week has been awarded the festival’s Dodie Spittal Award, named after a former volunteer at the event who survived polio. Every year, the festival’s jury awards the film that best embodies community spirit.
While a drama that chronicles deep-rooted superstitions and bias in rural Kenya may not seem to have much to do with modern attitudes in Canada about disabilities, festival director Sheryl Lenthall says the barriers and attitudes faced by the film’s protagonist and her ability to rally the community around her has universal resonance.
“These films are intended to get people to change some really, really old stereotypes, to put it mildly,” says Lenthall. “We have the same thing, we just go about it differently.”
Nyagari, who will be in Calgary to pick up the award and host a screening on April 11 at the Calgary Scope Society, has been taking her film around the world, where it is part of a movement to try to alter outdated notions of people with disabilities that persist in areas of Asia and Africa, Lenthall says.
Which makes it a perfect entry for Picture This, Canada’s first disability film festival that began 17 years ago and runs from April 11 to 13. It has brought local audiences a wide range of films that are either about disability or made by producers, writers or directors with disabilities. It also hands out juried awards under a number of categories, including documentary, animation and educational film.
Over the festival’s 17-year history, there has obviously been some evolution in attitudes toward those with disabilities, including artists. In The Unknown, the young actress who plays the film’s protagonist has cerebral palsy. There is a growing sensitivity about representation in popular culture, even if Hollywood has been slow to respond. Recently, there has been criticism of the upcoming biopic of paraplegic cartoonist John Callahan, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, specifically director Gus Van Sant’s decision to cast able-bodied actor Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role.
“With the filmmakers that we have, the audience that we have, and the international disability circuit, that is really, really frowned upon,” Lenthall says. “It is highly frowned upon and Hollywood is highly frowned upon for that.”
Still, while there is an educational component to Picture This, it is not meant to be a didactic or preachy affair.
With more than 30 entries coming from every corner of the globe — including Russia, Belarus, Africa, Iran and Syria — and covering every possible tone and genre. Voices from the Knitting Circle, which is the winner of both the Best of Festival and Documentary over 30 Minutes, is a film that chronicles the experiences of women who were imprisoned in asylums in the
These films are intended to get people to change some really, really old stereotypes.
United Kingdom.
On the other end of the tonal spectrum is the lighthearted Iranian film, The Father’s Pajamas Have Gone to the Wind. Lenthall says organizers have been stressing for years that Picture This is a festival for fans of cinema of every stripe. It is not grim.
“I don’t know if it was from those (TV movies) about ‘agonizing thing of the week’ on the telly where people got that notion,” she says. “Or maybe it’s the notion that disability somehow can’t be a normal part of life. We’ve always tried to get through to people: ‘Come and be entertained, just like any other festival.’ There’s completely different tones. We have films that are animation, films that are 50 seconds long right up to full features. There’s a lot of laughter and a lot of light touches.”
Picture This ... Film Festival runs from April 11 to 13 at the Calgary Scope Society. Visit www.ptff.org.