Figuring it out: Queer Crip Perspectives Onscreen

By Jesse Cooper, a BDEF Trustee.

Tuesday 8^th of July Megan and I were on a post screening panel for Figuring it out: Queer Crip* Perspectives Onscreen, a series of 8 short films that highlight queer and Disabled lived experiences, and the ways those two identities interact. The event was hosted at the Watershed Cinema and we were led on the panel by Florence Grieve, head of Sense and Accessibility and joined by Lorine Plagnol- the producer of the film Dope Fiend.

I had not seen the films before and didn’t know what to expect. What unfolded before us was a beautiful tapestry of the queer crip experience. I was struck by the immense joy and hope these films portrayed, films like Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and Neil David Ely’s  S.A.M and Debbie Hannan’s Mo <3 Kyra depicted beautiful teenage romances between queer Disabled young people, ones where unlike much mainstream media these parts of their identity were celebrated and fully realised rather than being something to overcome or a broad stereotype.

This is not to say the event shied away from the nuances and difficulties of queer crip experiences though. Gabrielle Demers’s Blond Night showed us a very complex portrayal of a Disabled young person accessing sex work, and Dorothy Cheung’s Heart Murmurs told the story of a man living through the Covid-19 pandemic while being HIV positive and Disabled. 

The panel afterwards was wonderful. We spoke about how important queer crip representation is, and how events like these need to reach beyond the Disabled audience and into the mainstream. Lorine told us how Dope Fiend’s frantic and honest depiction of ADHD came to be and the way the film was made with and for neurodiverse creatives, using improvisational writing to capture the chaos of being Disabled in a Disablist world.

I really enjoyed seeing these films and being part of the panel, it reminded that for all the difficulties facing Disabled people right now, there is still so much joy and hope to see, and it reminded me how powerful it can be when we see ourselves on screen and are able to imagine brighter futures.

*Crip is a term from Disability [studies] and justice movements. It denotes a desire “to jolt people out of their everyday understandings of bodies and minds, normalcy & deviance” A. Kafer, Queer, Feminist, Crip.

Watch the films mentioned