The Boys, by Rebekah Park (Australia, 2023), is a short film that brings together themes of family, inclusion and personal achievement. With a respectful eye, it explores experiences around congenital and intellectual disability, including Down syndrome, and touches on health challenges such as leukaemia and seizures. Music and sport appear as elements that motivate and connect, while the film highlights the strengths, humour and everyday realities of young adults with disability. Presented in the Focus on Ability International Short Film Festival, The Boys celebrates the talents and resilience of its subjects and invites audiences to rethink assumptions about ability and belonging.
Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to I am a fine musician I practice every day And people come from far away Just to hear me play My drum, my drum I love to play My drum, I am a fine musician I practice Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to Do what you're supposed to We always felt that we'd have a big family So we had three natural children And we had three adoptive children So then we had Tiana, and then we had David, and we had Nico Nico was different again He was really, really very, very bright And then he started, almost like he was sort of retreating into himself Because he was having seizures that we didn't know about And then we had to go to Melbourne with him And he was having seizure activity every half second or something Every 20 seconds or something And then they put him on these meds The seizures stopped, and we were sort of starting to get our little boy back Nico, he is just gentle He's just had a really gentle spirit, hasn't he? He's very persistent, he always keeps trying He's very brave And then he'll give it another go In adult life at 27, David all of a sudden had acute leukaemia So within a couple of days we had to leave the farm, move down to Melbourne And there we actually saw a different side of David The resilience, the ability to just face one day at a time So when he had chemo and he was sick that day, he would just sleep When he was good, he'd be up and bouncing around And, you know, give me some chicken And the biggest thing we saw in Dave was his faith The doctors had never had an adult as a patient with leukaemia And they were amazed at how well he did He just has a zest for living He loves food, he loves coffee even more He loves music How many push-ups did you do today? 200 and whatever Yeah, I reckon he can do 210 push-ups And yeah, after five months we came home again And now he's working out at the gym When David was a little boy Emphasis for children with disabilities was all about reading and writing And fitting into this box He didn't want to read and write He wanted to go out and play and kick stones and swim He needed that physical activity Nico actually loves sitting, reading and writing But there was no allowance for these children to be themselves really But it's not like that now, it is a lot better I think we've learned a lot because it just didn't work They're not weird, they do normal things And they're just like everybody else I'm supposed to be
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