Watch Me Fly, a 2023 short from Australian filmmaker Lily Drummond, explores themes of achievement, career and life with a congenital condition such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The film looks at how physical difference shapes perception, self worth and motivation, and touches on isolation, prejudice and the stereotypes people with disability often face. It also raises questions about employment pathways and the world of para-sport. Shot with an individual viewpoint, the film fits the programme of Focus on Ability by highlighting ability, aspiration and the everyday barriers many young adults navigate. A thoughtful, human portrait that invites discussion rather than offering easy answers.
It just felt like I was trying so hard but I just didn't really feel like that was kind of like a place for me in the world and like it was my, you know, my fault that I was lazy or clumsy and that sort of stuff and really I didn't like walking because it was excruciating. Sort of up until I was like 10 or 11, just found that I started to fall behind my peers a bit and went from always thinking I was quite coordinated to just kind of getting called a bit clumsy and uncoordinated. We now know that that was because I had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, it's like degenerative connective tissue disorder, which was causing a lot of dislocations and pain in my body. It was not until I was 21 that I got my first diagnosis after seeing a lot of specialists. I was studying veterinary medicine at the time and that was what I always wanted to do like throughout childhood, yeah, was be a vet. I loved animals, loved the medical side of it as well and so that was always my kind of trajectory, was working with animals in some form. Got into the veterinary medicine program, absolutely loved it. It was my second year that I got my diagnosis, I disclosed it to the uni thinking it wouldn't cause any issues, it's just an explanation for, you know, why I might have difficulty standing up for long periods of time and as soon as I told them that diagnosis, it straight away was you probably won't get registered by the veterinary registration board because they don't allow anyone with physical or mental impairments of any form. The registration board just said that they couldn't give me an answer, they wouldn't really speak to me or look at my case. You know, I was physically probably stronger than most people in my degree who didn't have a disability but that wasn't taken into consideration, it was just straight away you've got a diagnosis and that blacklists you. I just felt so unfair that it wasn't because my disability was interfering with my ability to do the job, like am I the one that's in the wrong here or does having a disability mean that you are less worthy of this stuff and should I not be chasing a career and, you know, become a Paralympian, is that all that society sort of wants from me? That's when I sort of went well where have I seen positive role models with disability and the only place that I could really think about that was in the context of para-sport and Paralympians. We're a 205 from Australia, Anu Francis. Anu Francis. That's where people with disabilities was shown in this really positive light and people looked up to them as, you know, inspirational and like they're achieving great things in life and I didn't really see people with disabilities outside of that context celebrated. I sort of thought maybe this is how I can find my community and kind of accept my disability and build back up my self-worth after losing my childhood dream career of being a vet. With para-sport it's a whole world that is designed for you and accommodations are made to make sure that you are included and can achieve what you want to achieve. Putting on the green and gold is just the most incredible feeling and sometimes you have to pinch yourself and go, gee is this real? Like it's just, it's incredible. So much hard work goes into it and you never know when it will be over so I'm just trying to really enjoy it and use that as a platform to make positive change. When I think about it, most of the suffering and the limitations and the hard parts about disability don't come from my disabilities themselves, they come from the barriers that society has put up because of my disabilities. Like why am I not a vet? Is it because of my disabilities? No, it's because people wouldn't let me be a vet. Restraining cows, like I could do it with my eyes shut. Most of the people in my class were getting thrown all over the shop. I was the one that was having the least issues out of all of them. The onus is always on the person with the disability to do everything they can to conform and to be 10 times better than an able-bodied person so that they can prove to an employer that they are just as good as someone without a disability. Society needs to just stop assuming that people with disabilities are automatically less than. Yeah, I think the burden should be on society. Getting to meet people all around the world that are living a similar experience to you and yeah, kind of I guess raising the expectations of society of what people with disabilities can achieve is incredible. I just hope that we can then use that to go into other career paths so that then it's not just expected that everyone with a disability to be successful needs to be a Paralympian. I think hopefully it just raises expectations in general that people with disabilities actually can do anything as long as society doesn't put the barriers in the way for them to be able to achieve them because yeah, I think people with disabilities can do incredible things.
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Watch Me Fly by Lily Drummond (2023)
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