Building Community Through Queer Learning Disability Amateur Filmmaking: Oska Bright Film Festival and Queer Freedom

Abstract

Much has been written on the intersection of disability and sexuality since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Disability (Shakespeare et al., 1996), however scant literature refers to these issues as represented on the screen, where it can be argued representations have the most power to shape perceptions. Disabled characters in media narratives are invariably represented as lacking in any sexuality or negation of heteronormative gender and sexual expressions. In 2017, Brighton-based learning disability film festival Oska Bright (OBFF) launched their Queer Freedom (QF) strand as an intervention in this lack of queer representation within learning disability narratives. In 2017 and 2019, QF featured films made by or featuring queer people with learning disabilities and autism, including Glasgow-based queer femme filmmaker Mattie Kennedy. Devised by OBFF Lead Programmer and queer filmmaker Matthew Hellett after meeting Kennedy at a previous OBFF, Hellett believed he had a responsibility to create a space for these unheard voices. This article mobilises Bonnie Honig’s feminist refusal method of inclination and bell hooks’ theory of talking back to explore how OBFF and QF have enabled Kennedy and Hellett to create space and claim their visibility as queer learning-disabled filmmakers through a process of mutual affirmation. Learning-disabled people have historically been segregated from society, so in the spirit of Foucault’s heterotopia, by coming together to form a community of people who affirm and encourage other queer learning-disabled people to make their voices heard, they are refusing their assigned societal segregation.