Film
Narrative
Documentary
Commercial
~experiments~
Theatre
About
Bio
CV
Contact
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT ~ BETTER (2019)
BETTER is a coming out film -for disability.
14% of young people in the UK live with a chronic health condition -a condition that they might initially hope will “go away” but over time must incorporate into their identity. This moment, where a chronically ill person decidesto reconcile their identity with their illness is a huge shift. And it’s a shift that the people closest to them, their family, can struggle with.
BETTER is a film about this struggle. It’s the story of two sisters: a young woman, Kitty, who has accepted her chronic condition, and her sister, Ruth, who still believes that one day Kitty might “get well” and live an non-disabled life. I first explored disability in my work with my producer, Celestine, in our BBC & BFI short film ILL, ACTUALLY. All our contributors sent the same message: being disabled is hard, yes, but what’s harder is the way that non-disabled people react to you. Especially when they think they know what’s best –or worse, believe one day your condition might disappear.
BETTER is a film that we hope will prompt conversation around this. We want to ask -how can non-disabled people support people with disabilities on their own terms?
BETTER is a film about how hard it is to accept that the people we love might be chronically ill forever, and that we cannot control how they react to that fact. We hope it will encourage conversation around the importance of listening to disabled and chronically ill people and meeting them where they are -as opposed to where non-disabled people might want them to be.