In November last year, the VALiD Banyule Peer Action Group presented Fantastic Flicks, a screening of films made by and about people living with disability.
The films captured the lived experience of disability across a range of contexts and explored themes of love, relationships, politics and activism, work, everyday fears and hopes and a range of other issues associated with membership and participation in community. In total, sixteen films were shown as part of the program.
The screening was made possible through the generous support of VALiD’s partner film‑making and producer organisations – City of Port Phillip, Arts Access Victoria, the Self Advocacy Resource Unit (SARU) and stART Community Art – who helped VALID source its films.
The films included local productions and 2 international films from Great Britain and the United States, provided by Arts Access Victoria from the Other Film Festival archive.
Another feature of the screening was the moving tribute by Colin Hiscoe, from Reinforce, who reminisced about the campaign to close Caloola Institution in the context of the films Witness and Windy Day made by Michael Buckley in collaboration with Colin and John Harrowell. VALiD appreciated Colin’s harrowing account of life in one of the large institutions in Victoria, which was made even sadder for Colin, given that many people, his friends, who stood alongside him in the campaign are no longer with us.
A big thank you to Barbara Armstrong and her team at Watsonia Library who support the Banyule PAG by providing access to a meeting room each month, as well as providing the space to screen Fantastic Flicks.
This was the Peer Action Groups first go at Fantastic Flicks and they are now planning to offer screenings in local communities where PAGs are based. The next Fantastic Flicks screening will be in Moe hosted by the Moe PAG at the Moe Library on Friday 2 March. More information about the Moe screening will be available soon.
In the meantime, if you would like to find out about Fantastic Flicks, or hold a local screening in your community, please contact Heather Forsythe heather@valid.org.auor Paul Dunn paul@valid.org.au at VALID.