Interview with Laura Cohen on the DISLABELED Philly Film Series

WG: Laura, this month you will be helping to launch the DISLABELED Philly Film Series. Can you talk a little bit about what is and how the idea for it came about?

LC: Clark Matthews and I met at a disability film festival in New York City in 2012. We both love film, and living with disability our entire lives, we want to see more films telling authentic stories about people with disabilities. No more inspiration porn, no more supercrips, no more inauthentic casting where non-disabled people get pats on the back for playing disabled, and no more film screenings about disability that don't include people with disabilities. We want to screen films that show people with disabilities in our full humanity- funny, sexy, complicated and real. Whenever possible, we want to feature filmmakers, actors, directors and producers with disabilities. And we want to get down and dirty and talk about what we love and hate about what we see on screen.

Clark was inspired (no pun intended) by Lawrence Carter-Long's disTHIS! a film screening series organized in New York City several years ago that brought together a diverse audience to watch films featuring disabled characters and stories about disability. What disTHIS! did was build a community around disability culture. And we want to do that here in Philadelphia. We are proud to share our name with the original DISLABELED Film Series, which took off where disTHIS! left off in New York. DISLABELED Philly is the Philadelphia edition.

We will be holding monthly screenings at PhillyCAM from June through November 2015. We are committed to making our screenings fully accessible to everyone with a barrier free venue, ASL interpretation, open captioning and audio description. Each film screening will be followed by a discussion with artists, scholars and activists and a talk-back with the audience.

Because PhillyCAM is Philadelphia's community access media station, we'll be able to film the panel and audience discussion and create a TV show capturing all the juicy stuff we'll talk about. The show will be available through broadcast and video on demand via PhillyCAM's cable channel and accessible everywhere online.

WG: Once you and Clark decided to put the film series together, what did it involve in terms of actually making it happen?

LC: Lots of pizza and movie parties! I'm only partially kidding.

We actually did have quite a few movie nights, many where we invited other folks with disabilities to get their take on a film. We took some time to build a long list of screening possibilities, and we didn't want the to limit our choices to our own tastes and preferences. We wanted a variety of perspectives.

We built an informal advisory committee to intentionally gather people with a diversity of disability experiences as well as other peers working in film programming in Philadelphia. We are slowly recruiting a working group as well to share all of the work involved. It is very important to the integrity of the project that the majority of people working to make this happen are people with disabilities.

We also made the decision that we wanted to pursue funding for this project so that we could support working artists, open up more possibilities for programming and guest speakers, and keep the series affordable and accessible for everyone. So that we can accept funding, we have partnered with CultureTrust of Greater Philadelphia, which provides fiscal sponsorship and so much other support. We really recommend them for any individual artist or collective in Philadelphia seeking a fiscal sponsor, insurance, back office support, and even co-working space.

So far we have been lucky to receive seed funding from a Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation Quality of Life Grant, a Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts Project Stream grant, and PECO. This gives us enough capital to get started and to offer the series free of charge, but we'll continue to pursue additional funding to produce a full 6 months of programming. Keep an eye out for a crowdfunding campaign coming soon!

Finally, to really make this happen, we needed a venue. We wanted a consistent location so that our audience knows where to go for each event and can feel confident that the space is accessible. We looked at several options. Clark has been taking classes and working on productions at PhillyCAM. It's such a happy, welcoming, flexible ommunity space, and it just makes sense. ts a great bonus that PhillyCAM allows us the facilities and equipment to create not only the live event but the broadcast show as well.

WG: As you probably know better than almost anyone else, opinions about the representations of disability in films can be extremely contentious, even within the disabilities community, so it is probably no surprise that many people without disabilities are oblivious to some of the kinds of representations that cause concern. Can you give an example of a popular film where you feel that – without expressly intending to be – the portrayal of disability is of concern and why? Perhaps also an example of a film – possibly one that you will be showing – that you feel handles a similar situation much better.

LC: You are right, Mike, that opinions about representation can be contentious. We really have no intention of policing those opinions, especially within disability communities. Communities are only stronger when a diversity of experiences and views are expressed. We want everyone to feel welcome and excited to come hang out and watch movies at DISLABELED and to join the post-screening talk back in any way that they want.

One great example of a piece that handles disability well and that we hope to incorporate into DISLABELED is Teal Sherer's self-produced web series My Gimpy Life. We know that Teal uses a wheelchair but medical diagnosis never comes up during the course of her many misadventures throughout the series. When a character finally asks "how (her) accident happened," she playfully quips "Have you ever seen those sex wings?" This is a marked contrast from many films and television shows that focus again and again on the horrific car crash that led to a spinal cord injury or the tragic disease that left someone blind at an early age. What we do see in My Gimpy Lifeis Teal putting a comic spin on some of the everyday realities of using a wheelchair that are often overlooked or glossed over in other pieces. We see Teal navigating through Hollywood auditions full of stairs, squeezing through a tiny restaurant to meet a date and speaking out when called "inspirational." It's a refreshing change of pace.

New possibilities for living our lives, for being anyone, doing anything and living any way that we want, are only possible if we can imagine them. By limiting portrayals of disability in the media, we are not only limiting non-disabled perceptions of disability, we are also limiting how people with disabilities perceive our own lives and potential. This is only one of many systemic reasons why there are so few people with disabilities working in the entertainment industry and creating our own representations. As the making and consumption of media changes through technology, we are seeing this trend slowly change. New formats for production and distribution, like web series, have made it possible for artists with disabilities like Teal to green light their own productions. We want to make sure this kind of work is seen and supported by as many people as possible.

WG: It sounds from the example that you have just given as though you are interested in using independent and non-main stream films. What were some of the sources you explored in trying to come up with films? Are you aiming at having a very eclectic core of films for the series? Do you plan to be showing any locally produced films?

LC: Ideally we would love to show a range of films, from mainstream Hollywood films to independent feature length films, short films and other new media, like web series.

We have a running wishlist based on several sources including talking to people who work in disability and media, like Lawrence Carter-Long and Beth Haller, attending other film screenings and festivals like Reelabilitie s (in several cities), Superfest in San Francisco and a really great opportunity to see a glimpse of Australia's The Other Film Festival in New York City.

For the first season we have prioritized films that already open captioned and/or audio-described because that will keep our costs down while we are still building our budget up, and films that are available online in some format, so that at-home audiences watching the broadcast show can access the full films if they wish.

Independent films are wonderful not only because they often show very different representations of disability than we see in mainstream films, but because it is often much easier to connect with the filmmakers, directors and other artists involved. We are working on bringing some exciting filmmakers and actors to Philly this first season. We are also eager to connect with more local filmmakers and would love the opportunity to include more local work in this first year.

We start with a preview screening on June 15th and launch the full series on July 20th. To keep up with the latest screening info, you can sign up for our email list at dislabeled.philly@gmail.com and like us on Facebook at https://m.facebook.com/DislabeledPhilly. We look forward to seeing everyone soon!