It’s a week since we screened Total Permission – our 30 minute feature to a full house at Watershed in Bristol. People packed the cinema keen to see the fruits of our labours in what turned out to be a very apt celebration for International Day of Disabled Persons.
So many different perspectives and positions were touched upon in the work and afterwards in a lively Q&A, astutely chaired by BBC Earth Executive, Mike Poole who steered the panel and audience through the complex waters of what this year has meant for quality disability representation in sport and art and what the future needs to hold to underpin more of the same.
What came through was a sense that the PUSH ME commission has shifted things irrevocably in many ways: a sea change in how the work of deaf and disabled artists is portrayed and pushed out there and that Total Permission and the 24 short features have made a difference to a diversity of people connecting with the work. As one person who saw the film this weekend in The Space said
What an amazing film, it needs to be seen by everyone!
So we’ll be pushing it out to festivals to get it some considerable airing. Watch this Space and if you want to see a clip of the film, then catch or set your box to catch the tail end of the Culture Show this Wednesday 12th at 10pm.
Congratulation to everyone involved with the Total Permission Documentary, it is important, and not only from the perspective of the artistic contributions from each of the artists, but Push Me (SaraH Pickthall, Jo Verrent and all the team at Watershed) delivered a program that considered every artistic as well as access perspective in the making of the whole Push Me program. The film and the production values were sublime and engaged with everyone, this work has the capacity to change values within our society. Thank you!