The way we live
How does the thought of spending an evening watching films about disabled people strike you? Be honest here. Yes, that was our feeling, too. Still, despite our reflexive bias, we met up in Munich's Film Museum last night and watched works from places as far apart as Ireland, Britain, India, Singapore and East Africa. All were inspirational; one was sensational.
"The Way We Live" is the title of an international festival of short films that focuses entirely on disability. For this, the fourth festival, director Gregor Kern has selected 24 films from 13 countries. Going on our experience of the five we saw last night, the variety of cultures and challenges represented says a great deal about the universal appeal of filmmaking and the growing global awareness of the needs of the disabled. Singling out any of the films we saw would be invidious, so we're mentioning the first and last of the evening, just to give an idea of the range of issues addressed.
First up last night was the 24-year-old Irish director Edward Smith. In "One in Three", a trio of women, whose faces we never see, talk about coping with cancer. Using computer animation instead of the traditional documentary photographic style for his seven-minute film, Smith makes the catastrophe of cancer personal in a way that allows the audience sense the suffering, and the vigour of the casualties. It's an impressive debut.
The final film of our evening was a 57-minute work by Lawan Jirasuradej called Mama Wahunzi ("Women Blacksmiths"). The Bangkok-born filmmaker, who studied film on a Fulbright scholarship in San Francisco, takes the plight of disabled women in Kenya and Uganda who desperately need wheelchairs, as her story line. Most of the action revolves around the training of a group of women at a metal workshop sponsored by the American organization, Whirlwind Wheelchairs International. For this member of the audience, the strength of the African women who have to cope with disability while making a living and raising families was simply sensational.
"The Way We Live" film festival ends today.
Diarist of the day: Alec Guinness, 22 November 1995"In early evening to a friend's flat where I made my long overdue confession to a holy and illuminating priest. It was a memorable experience which gently sponged away all my recent irascibility, anxieties and spiritual turmoil. Perhaps kneeling at a dining-room table is more relaxing that the upright coffin of an elaborately carved confessional. It would be good to think that from now on I shall spread only sweetness, light and understanding; but I fear I know myself too well The bad habits of a lifetime, when tackled head on, seem only to bend, not break."
