The Oska Bright Film Festival featured even more films and in better quality this year. We had three brand new strands – horror, nature and poetry – and partnered with film distributor Tull Stories to issue our first feature-length film, Being Ola, a heartwarming documentary from Norway, directed by Ragnhild Noest Bergem.
This year, 108 films across 12 strands were shown. They took place mostly at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange as well as pop-up venues at Sea Lanes’ Clubhouse, the Rose Hill and Duke’s at Komedia. For the first time ever, there was an online strand of six features which allowed people to enjoy Oska Bright from their homes.
Oska Bright, founded in 2004, gets learning disabled and autistic people on the big screen. It gets our voices heard and shows the world what we can do – that we can do anything.
Representation of learning disabilities and/or autism in film has increased since Oska Bright began. It gives people who have learning disabilities or who are autistic the confidence to try new things, especially if they come to the festival for the first time and think: “I want to try that.”
The films have been brilliant – interesting, wonderful and sad. I’m so glad to have helped select the films that made it into the festival.
The best thing is how the Oska Bright team and staff from arts charity Carousel, who produce the festival work together, get involved with the local community to show them that we are just like them, just as capable.
Another is to be able to show films from such fun and creative people which would otherwise go unheard and unseen. I love working for Oska Bright for this reason – to help others find their voices and be seen.
Kirsty Pentecost is a programmer and access lead for the Oska Bright Film Festival
