Missing, by Neve & Andrew Mula (Australia, 2023), is part of the Focus on Ability International Short Film Festival. The film explores perception and viewpoint around physical disability, considering how prosthetics, sleeves and stigma shape assumptions. It looks at prejudice and stereotypes while highlighting individual experience and the complexities of teenage perspective. Quiet and thoughtful, Missing invites viewers to notice what they see and what they overlook. Presented here as a prompt for conversation, it fits the festival’s aim to showcase films that reveal the abilities, experiences and achievements of people with disability.
When I was born, mum and dad called it my cute arm, because it was small, soft and well, cute. They would take me to the limb clinic to see the doctors, OTs and prosthetic specialists, who were all lovely, but they didn't really know what I couldn't articulate at the time. I saw this young, happy child, missing her left forearm and hand, and tried their best to support me, with shiny, patterned, moulded replacements. The thing is, I didn't need an add-on, still don't. I didn't know how to say it at the time, but it is what I've always thought, missing. It's a word I'm not as familiar with as you'd think. Did I have a left forearm to start with? No, I'm not missing it. Do I know what it was like to have it? No, I don't miss it. When I was young, kids my age would stare, sometimes horrified. They'd never seen someone in their short lives without an arm. They wondered what had happened, did it hurt? But didn't know how to say that, and they knew nothing else but to keep staring. I remember the time where I really started to lose my naivety. It was in the bathroom at choir rehearsal in grade 3. I was just 8 years old. It was me and this other girl, around about the same age, at the sinks. She just stared, in that really piercing way. Then it hit me for the first time, like the way a big idea lands on those random occasions. It was a bit of a rough ride the next year. Mum was great when I was young and would cut the sleeves off shirts, coats and jumpers so I could move about. She kept those for a long time, thought they might express or represent something in the future. And when I think about it, she was right, because the only thing that was missing was my sleeve.
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by Neve & Andrew Mula - OPEN ENTRANT DOCUMENTARIES
