This learning disability film festival is helping people and condescending critics should shut up and watch

The fact that Oska Bright film festival is now recognised by the British Film Institute is a step forward for disability representation, but more are need and that will only come when people examine their prejudices

The Oska Bright festival has showcased a variety of films including music videos and documentaries (Oska/YouTube)

“A feel-good exercise.”

“A children’s festival.”

The people behind the biannual Oska Bright film festival, which kicks off in Brighton later this month, have good reason to feel angry about some of the criticism that has come their way.

It is, in fact, neither of these things.

Instead, it features the work of people with learning disabilities and/or autism and/or Asperger’s Syndrome (that term has fallen out of favour as a definition but people still find it useful) and has this year attracted more than 2,000 submissions from a global field (Japan and Iran are among the countries represented).

Its organisers are launching it with a plea to call time on the grotesquely unfair representation of learning-disabled artists in film. The call is well made. It could be applied to disability across the board.

On those rare occasions where it features on-screen it is typically used as a McGuffun, a prop that is there to drive the plot along without any real relevance to it.

The actors chosen to take on the roles of disabled people are usually able-bodied too, further squeezing out disabled talent.

The film industry has got to grips with the idea that blacking up is wrong and there’s been some progress towards more diverse casts, although it has a long way to go and still gets it wrong on occasion. See the controversy about the casting of Scarlett Johansson as the Japanese Major in Ghost in the Shell for a recent example.

When it comes to disability, however, it remains stuck in the early part of the last century.

Ideally you wouldn’t need such an event like Oska Bright because those it features, its film makers, performers producers, would be integrated into the wider industry.

But they are not.

According to government figures as many as 19 per cent of working-age adults have some form of disability. According to the Creative Skillset Employment Census that took place in 2012, just 0.3 per cent of the workforce in film was identified as disabled. For the creative media as a whole it was 1 per cent. Even though the figures are now quite dated, the word dismal doesn’t even begin to describe them. Disturbingly the survey didn’t show much sign of an improving trend. Au contraire.

The festival is necessary because while there is clearly a demand – the size of the field and its diversity speaks to that – there are few other opportunities for the people who have entered films to display their talents.

But what about the charge that is just a big “feel-good exercise”, a patronising visual arts Special Olympics. The criticism itself is rather patronising if you think about it.

Nonetheless, said I, send me some submissions from previous years. I’ll look at them with a critical eye.

One in particular caught my attention and held it. It’s called Mask, and features its maker Sharif Persaud delivering a monologue in an Al Murray mask.

The real Al Murray turns up about halfway through.

As the parent of an autistic child it delivered a light bulb moment about half way through.

Through the medium of film it offered an insight into aspects of my son’s behaviour that I understood on an intellectual level but perhaps hadn’t connected with on an emotional one. This is what cinema, at its best, can do. It’s just not doing it enough. Disabled voices need to be heard.

No doubt there’s bad as well as good among the entrants. It’s a film festival after all.

But I’d respectfully suggest that those who dismisses it as a feel-good exercise need to examine their prejudices.

Set up in 2004, the event is now recognised by the British Film Institute (BFI), which means entrants are eligible for Baftas in the short film category. That, at least, is a step forwards. More are needed.

Oska Bright Film Festival takes place between 23-26 October at The Old Market, Brighton