Documentaries

Documentaries are far more likely to focus on the individual, brave disabled person triumphing over personal tragedy, than to focus on the millions of disabled people who are living their lives in as many different ways as everyone else in the population. Some, though, have been made by disabled filmmakers and have a very different approach, such as:

• Alison's Baby (1999, Channel 4). This features on the bfi Disabling imagery? DVD (2002), available from bfi education.
• Count Me In (2001, Channel 4). Two 30-minute programmes on making inclusion work for a variety of pupils with different impairments in six primary and six secondary schools.
• The Deaf Century (1999, Channel 4). The history of deaf people over the last century.
• Desperate DAN (1996, ITV). Some great footage of direct action by disabled people to protest about the lack of accessible transport. DAN is the Direct Action Network.
• The Disabled Century (three-part series, BBC2, 1999). Three-part documentary using interviews, old footage and stills with talk-overs about how disabled people were treated and what their lives were like over the previous 100 years. Evocative, but short on historic detail.
• Face of Our Fear (1991, Steve Dworkins, Channel 4). Dworkins is a disabled filmmaker who has made a series of documentaries about being a disabled person. Using props and actors, he creates the history and situations that disable disabled people.
• Fly on the Wall (1998, BBC). A Series of documentaries filmed secretly, that show reactions to disabled people in everyday situations.
• Old School Ties (1996, Ann Pugh, BBC). Four 30-minute documentaries on the impact of special schools on the lives of disabled people; examples of effective inclusion; parents' struggles for the inclusion of their children, and why there is so much resistance to this basic human right.
• On My Life (1999, Ian Dury, BBC2). A documentary with music about this famous disabled singer-songwriter. Tells of how he grew up as a disabled boy and young man with polio in both legs. Informative and entertaining.

Make sure you prepare the ground by covering the material in the Introducing disability in class guidelines before looking at issues in any specific moving image text.

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