Voices

Event: Skin Stories – love. desire. disability.

Description: A person with long black hair sits up in bed, under a blanket, reading a book. A magazine, cup of spilled coffee and pillow lie on the floor beside them. On the edge of the bed is a blinking phone. The bedroom is decorated with yellow wallpaper and a rug, lamp and painting in warm shades of red. Credit: Alia Sinha

A day of inclusive film screenings in Mumbai

Point of View is delighted to invite you to Skin Stories: love. desire. disability, a day of inclusive film screenings in Mumbai on February 17th, 2018 at Daughters of St. Paul in Bandra.

Myths and stigma shroud the intimate lives of people with disabilities. Through this event, we seek to challenge these harmful assumptions by demonstrating that people with disabilities are sexual beings, just like anyone else.

The event is free and open to all. The films we will show will have subtitles and audio descriptions. The venue will be fully accessible and there will be a sign language interpreter present.

Please find the detailed programme below. You can confirm attendance using this online form, or by email ([email protected]).

We do hope you’ll join us in opening up the conversation around disability and sexuality.

Programme Schedule

Program 1

11 am — 1.30 pm

Nisha and Chetan

Directed by Rashmi Ravindran

(Hindi, India, 2015, 3.5 mins)

After a spinal cord injury at the age of 18, Nisha became paralysed from the waist down. Confined to her home for the next few years, she decided that going out, enjoying her youth, dating, and love were not on the cards for her…until she met Chetan.

THIS IS NORMAL

Directed by Justin Giddings and Ryan Welsh

(English and Sign Language, USA, 2013, 20 mins)

A young deaf* woman named Gwen undergoes an experimental medical procedure that is supposed to ‘cure’ her of her deafness and give her the ability to hear. Despite the controversy, Gwen risks her friends, culture, and identity to discover the answer to the question, “Is it worth giving up who you’ve BEEN for the ‘maybe’ you could BECOME?”

*To our d/Deaf audience: the filmmakers chose “deaf” over “Deaf” because Gwen does not self-identify with the Deaf culture due to her mainstreaming upbringing. Part of the film is exploring the conflict of embracing a Deaf identity or abandoning it completely.

Unrest

Directed by Jennifer Brea

(English, USA, 2017, 98 mins)

Jennifer Brea, an active Harvard PhD student about to marry the love of her life, finds her life suddenly derailed by M.E. (commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Hoping to shed light on her strange symptoms, which doctors tell her is “all in her head,” she turns the camera on herself and her community, filming her darkest moments as she looks for answers and fights for a cure.

Panel (15 min)

Srinidhi Raghavan in conversation with filmmaker Jennifer Brea


Program 2

3 pm — 5.30 pm

Shobha

Directed by Zulfiya Hamzaki for Point of View in collaboration with SANGRAM

(Marathi, India, 2014, 3 mins)

Shobha Hiremath, a hearing-impaired sex worker in Sangli, Maharashtra, talks about growing up in the ‘sex workers’ alley’, being bullied as a child and her thoughts on marriage, sex and sex work.

Kajal

Directed by Putul Mahmood for Anjali Mental Health Rights Foundation

(Hindi, India, 2017, 21 mins)

Kajal is a young, vivacious girl, whose sojourn at the Bahrampur Mental Hospital turned permanent. Abandoned and neglected by her husband, brother and everybody else she called her own, she still desires the love, companionship and affection that she never received. Termed ‘mad’ and rejected, Kajal yearns for a second chance at a happy life. This is her story and the story of many other Kajals.

The Sessions

Directed by Ben Lewin

(English, USA, 2012, 95 mins)

Set in 1988 Berkeley, California, and based on the true story of Mark O’Brien, a poet who lives in an iron lung due to complications from polio, and is determined, at the age of 38, to have sex for the first time in his life. With the guidance of his priest and the help of his therapist, Mark gets in touch with a professional sex surrogate who prescribes six sessions for him.

Panel (15 min)

Bishakha Datta in conversation with Nidhi Goyal and Tony Kurian


Program 3

6pm — 9pm

KRUTCH

Directed by Clark Matthews

(USA, 2013, 5 mins)

This steamy, experimental short film explores perception, sexuality, disability and gender on the streets and sheets of New York City.

Awake

Directed by Michael Actman

(English, UK, 2015, 22 mins)

In this existential comedy, Anna, who is chronically ill, is visited by Doreen, a door to door proselytizer who makes herself at home and stays the day, slowly defrosting her non-welcome. Together, they walk in the park, bake a cake and watch an Ingmar Bergman film. Both women are blind, and are played by blind actors.

Still Alice

Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland

(English, USA, 2014, 101 mins)

Alice Howland, a well known linguistics professor, is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease shortly after her 50th birthday. The devastating diagnosis challenges her sense of self, her familial bonds, as well as the the lives of her husband and their three grown up children. Based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 bestselling novel of the same name.

Panel (15 min)

Shreya Ila Anasuya in conversation with Val Resh

 

Featured image credit: Alia Sinha