Am I So Different? 12pm
In August this year, Arts House invited local community groups to collaborate with Back to Back Theatre’s creative team in a short film-making residency model. The result is a rapidly moving series of short live performances and screen-based video portraits. Enjoy it while it’s fresh!
Visit The Democratic Set's website for more information
What’s in a word? When it comes to intimacy, everything. An encounter between two people, one with an intellectual disability, the other with a mental illness, reveals the universality of our struggle with commitment. Initial resistance and uncertainty begin to give way to a deeper connection as these so called ‘outsiders’ experience the pain that only intimacy can deliver.
Deaf Futures 2:30pm
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A provocative peep into a future where deafness has been engineered out of existence. It’s a brave new world not without its objectors. It follows four Deaf children over 60 years; who will choose the new treatment and will it be the miracle it promises for all?
A young girl grows up in a hearing family not knowing she was deaf, only that she couldn’t hear. In a canny recreation of Sandrine’s childhood mixed with her warm retelling to camera we start make sense of this extraordinarily awkward start to life as a fabulous deaf person.
The Price of Victory 4:30pm
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The emotional story of a group of severely wounded American soldiers, as they fight to turn nightmares of war into Olympic dreams. Warrior Champions is a coming home story of struggle and triumph that challenges every notion of what it means to be disabled.
An unflinching look into the eyes of broken men. Decades on, the trauma of war continues to haunt the returned soldiers who fought in the Iran-Iraq war. They lost their comrades in battle, but when they returned, they lost their mental health and their connection to the community.
Athens Inferno 7:30pm
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In June 2010, nine people with a disability occupied the Department of Social Security for two days. They refused to leave until the federal Minister agreed to meet them to discuss their grievances. Antonios Rellas was one of those nine people. In his only Australian appearance, Antonios Rellas brings a confronting report directly from the frontline of civic upheaval. Utilising ‘camera verite’ and interviews, Rellas presents a human rights tragedy and how people with a disability are fighting back. For more information visit the Events and Forums page.
Wild Things 9:30pm
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Daniel doesn’t feel different, so why does everyone treat him so? They look at him pityingly; they patronize him and treat him like an outsider. Well Daniel has had enough… he wants to be included. 46/47 is a deliciously sharp comedy that offers an off-centre perspective on how people with genetic difference are viewed in the world.
A bunch of misfits with two chords, a heap of attitude and something to say. Close enough for rock’n’roll? Join the wild ride with punk band, Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day, as they journey from their humble rehearsal room to sudden cult success across Finland. True to punk tradition, the band plays hard and loud and their off-centre lyrics reflect their experiences as adult men with intellectual disabilities. The audience’s laughter fades, however, when the band starts to sing about self-hatred and living under other people’s control. Ego and anarchy abound as they unleash their alienation and exclusion on an unsuspecting world. Is this gnarly outfit able to handle instant stardom?
