The UK’s leading disability arts and media organisation DASH, supported by ScreenWM, will be bringing the first UK Disability Film Festival to The Public on the International Day of Disabled People, 3rd December 2010.

Timetable
11.00 – 12.00 The Best of OSKA BRIGHT Learning Disability Films
12.00 - 2.00 The Window: Art with a difference (presentation & discussion)
2.00 – 4.00 Magic Hour 2010 Short Films
4.00 – 6.00 Raspberry Ripple, Feature Film

• Films 1

11.00am – 12.00 noon | Level 2
The Best of Oska Bright

Oska Bright is a Learning Disability Festival of the moving image consisting of films made entirely by people with learning difficulties. Originating in Brighton, Oska Bright has been running for 4 years and this is the first ever Best of Oska Bright screenings.

Screenings will take place on Level 2 of The Public.

Films (all between 5 - 10 minutes):

Journeys - Country Road? Take me Home! by Project Ability (Glasgow)

I Saw A Girl by Arty Party (Telford)

In Our Shoes by Serena Nordon (Kenilworth)

The Raven’s Tale by The Shystershadows (Coventry)

Germ Academy by JUMPcuts Film Production Company (Tauton)

Story of The Beatles by Hughie Mclntyre (Glasgow)

35 km by Vilmos Kerecsendy (Vacegres, Hungary

Hope Springs - Episode 1 by David Miller, Wendy Elsley and Peter Nison From Shoot Your Mouth Off Films (Gateshead)

The End of The World According to The Ram by Yosef Foyt, Martin Vojmik, Lucis Pasovam Pavla Jeykova, Ales Koudela, Darko Lazarevic and Zdenka Mikova (Prague, Czech Republic).

• Presentation

12 noon – 2.00pm | Level 2
The Window: Art with a Difference

When I look out of the window I dream of what I want to see.

A discussion led by artists based in West Bromwich that will ask the following questions:

• How do you leave the mental health art world to get into mainstream art?
• How can our work be viewed differently, outside of the mental health stigma?
• How do we create an exhibition using this idea of getting away from the stigma.
• Can we explore ways to show our work, online, in a shop
• Try looking through the window, and see what’s in the frame, in a different way.

Alongside the discussion will be a presentation of new work and opportunity for people to talk about their creativity. The Window is a unique opportunity for individuals of the community who have an interest in art to have it displayed with like minded people in support of disability and mental health awareness. We welcome work by learning disabled artists and artists from the community who experience the similar barriers. If you wish to show your work please contact Alan, Teresa and Tim using our email windowswithadifference@gmail.com

Attendance by Act Up (Rethink), Kuumba Sandwell African Caribbean Mental Health Foundation, Sandwell Mental Health and Social Care and artists

Event supported by WORKING pARTS and The Public. For more information visit www.workingparts.co.uk

• Films 2

Films 2 

1. The Beaten, 2010, Simon McKeown (writer & director), 10 mins

The legendary UK disabled actor and comic Liz Carr stars in a hard hitting drama about the potential despair disabled people are facing in the future. Set in a single room, Liz Carr’s performance is a tour de force of emotion and vulnerability.

2. Finding a Sky, 2010, Ewan Marshall (Dir), Alex Bulmer (Writer), John Alderton 18 mins

Seagulls fly over the roof of a large sea-side house. A painted sign with the words “The Golden Sands” hangs over its front door. In the back garden, a small group of elderly residents play croquet. They murmur protests as, with a loud ‘clack’, one player sends their opponents ball across the grass. In one corner of the garden, near to a parking area, two people sit by a goldfish-pond. A retired naval officer, Robert, who has dementia, wants to help a blind woman, Betty, by giving her a moment of seeing.

3. The White Wall, 2010, Sanchita Islam (Writer/Director – Animation, 13 mins

The white wall traces the journey of a girl who does not fit in the world and has never fitted, although outwardly she resembles a little girl her mind is in another place, another world, another time. It is these feelings of displacement and alienation that make her feel hostile to anything resembling normality, i.e. happy families and kids playing.

Selected Shorts from around the World:

Introducing Homo Mancus, 2009, Christian Saleta,Germany, 9 mins

A story of a man on his search for acceptance and recognition: a furious Corvette ride through social barriers and a life on two different sides, ending up in a famous dream. Real life action.

Cloud Catcher, 2009, Miha Knific, Slovenia (English), 15 mins

Cloud catchers were considered heroes, but one day the state convicted all their heroic acts and started to hunt them down. The head hunters dark shadow is approaching the city, were he is hunting the cloud catchers that managed to escape were there are few people striving to survive as there’s no trace of any water.

Turn the Book Around, 2009, Sean Burn, 2 mins

An experimental film using sound and images to evoke life.

Flourish2BU. 2010, Outside Centre Productions, 10 mins

A group of disabled people come together on a health and well being project in Wolverhampton; during which some weight is lost, some fitness gained and friendships made. One person goes from couch potato to 19.4K cycle marathon participant (even if he was last)!

• Films 3

4.00pm – 6.00pm | Level 2
BBC Film - Feature:

Raspberry Ripple
1986, Nigel Finch (Dir.), John Gordon Sinclair, Nabil Shaban, Faye Dunaway 1 hr 40 mins

Raspberry Ripple was produced by the BBC and features John Gordon Sinclair (Gregory’s Girl) as a doleful young man confined to a wheelchair who regularly escapes reality by dreaming about American gangster movies. Figuring in his fantasies is a team of Bonnie and Clyde-like desperadoes.

• Archive Film

The following films will be shown on the ground floor of The Public throughout the day
(all films between 15 seconds and 10 minutes)

Leicester Guild of Cripples
A major fundraising event by the rich in aid of the 'Cripples of Leicester'. Fantastic sights of old equipment. 1920.

Goose Fair in Nottingham
A man with one leg dives from a high board into a small pool of water; and a black, female, short stature 'freak' meets the Mayor. 1930s.

Midland Montage
2 February 1961
Bus for the disabled. A Cheshire home receives a new bus for the use of its residents. Ideal viewing to see a range of old chairs. (no audio)

Midlands News
5 May 1961
Handicapped people from Wolverhampton off on holiday, set-off from Molineux Hotel opposite Molineux Motor. (no audio)

Midland Montage
March 1963
Frank Letch - armless student in class and at Birmingham Station.

Midlands News
10 February 1964
Nottingham's Barton’s Buses give a Cheshire Home, Holme Lodge, a special bus for disabled patients. (no audio)

Midlands News
18 April 1966
Interview with Dame Isobel Cripps opening a new centre for handicapped children at Cheltenham.

ATV Today
17 May 1966
A Blind man travels from Crewe to Birmingham each day by train to work at Delta Metals.

ATV Today
7 October 1968
A deaf-blind man working in a metals factory.

Midlands News
29 April 1969
Carlson House School for 'spastic children' at Harborne receives a coach from the Variety Clubs Sunshine Committee. (Mute).

ATV Today
15 September 1975
Actor Roger Tonge - the 'crippled Sandy Richardson on Crossroads' - launches a road safety campaign at Victoria School for the handicapped at Northfield in Birmingham.

Midlands News
13 Nov 1969
Spina Bifida children at the Catherine Elliot School in Shrewsbury walk with a new type of splint.

ATV Today
20 April 1970
Barbara Blake interview with Peter McCranor and Neil McDonald of Coventry who run a stall at Coventry Market and take part in paraplegic sport.

ATV Today
10 September 1970
Jeffrey Watson report about Hilary Pole in Walsall who is considered to be one of the world’s most severely disabled people suffering from Myasthenia

ATV Today
18 August 1969
Invalid cars.

ATV Today
13 July 1973
Tony Maycock interview with Professor John Ellis, head of the Cranfield Institute of Technology about his criticisms of the AC invalid car.

ATV Today
30 September 1977
Three wheeled invalid carriage protest in Solihull at the St John’s Hotel where Social Service Secretary David Ennals was making a speech.

ATV Today
11 December 1972
An interview with Joyce Carpenter from Bromsgrove who at 29 inches is the smallest woman in the world.

ATV Today 

20 Jan 1981 

Wheelchair dancing class in Cannock run by Beryl Bellingham.