Enabled on screen: A festival for the disabled in Mumbai

Skin Stories: love. desire. disability wants to begin a conversation about living with disability and encourage sensitivity when it comes to accessible cinema screenings

Skin Stories: love. desire. disability

WHEN: Daughters of St. Paul, Waterfield Road, Bandra West

WHERE: Saturday, February 17

CONTACT: 85879-40546

Entry is free

A paraplegic who finds love in an unexpected way, a hearing-impaired sex worker expressing her views on marriage, a mental patient craving companionship. The line-up of films at Skin Stories: love. desire. disability, take romance and sexuality down a relatively unexplored path.

The festival of nine films from all over the world is organised by the non-profit, Point of View. There are audio descriptions and subtitles for each film, a sign language interpreter will help the hearing-impaired and the Bandra venue is fully accessible for those with disabilities. All screenings will end with conversations with disability and gender rights activists and filmmakers.

Unrest, a 98-minute English film directed by Jennifer Brea is a part of the festival. Brea, an active Harvard PhD student about to marry the love of her life, finds her life suddenly derailed by M.E. (commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).

“The idea of the event is to begin a conversation about living with disability and encourage sensitivity when it comes to accessible cinema screenings,” says Nidhi Goyal, program director of sexuality and disability at Point of View. “In popular media, we are either shown as heroic or as a burden, needing a superhuman person to accept us. But hey, we are people first, and have our share of goofy love stories!”

Priti Shetty, 32, a digital marketing manager and shortfilm-maker, is looking forward to attending Skin Stories. “I use a wheelchair but I’ll be taking three or four non-disabled friends so we can be inspired to make our own films that break the stereotypes about love and disability,” she says.