Kirsty Pentecost is considering whether to pose for a photograph with the papier-maché model head of Oska Bright, symbol of the accessible film festival based in Brighton.
The head is large and unwieldy and, quite possibly, uncomfortable. “Well, I won’t wear it!” she eventually decides. “Maybe Molly can wear it?”
Happily, Molly Wells, Oska Bright production assistant, is game for being photographed as the mythical Oska. She pulls the large model head onto her shoulders and puts an arm around Pentecost and Community Living gets the shot.
Pentecost is 35 and lives “on the edge of Brighton”. She got into watching films when she was at college and then one day she heard about the Oska Bright festival: “And I was like, ooh, films!”
Now she is access lead for Oska Bright and a member of the small committee of people with learning disabilities and autism that chooses the films for the biennial festival, the most recent of which took place earlier this year.
Pentecost says: “I’ve been here 11 years and it just keeps getting better and better.”
From one day
The festival began as a one-day event in 2004. All the films are made by or feature people with learning disabilities and autism. The event is mainly funded by
the British Film Institute with National Lottery support. Since its first days, the festival has continuously grown.
It takes a year to prepare for each festival, Pentecost tells me. This year, 114 films were shown over 14 screening events. They include comedies, documentaries, live-action films and animation.
Most are short films but, in 2026, the festival featured the premiere of its first feature-length film, a documentary called Being Ola.
The festival took place at the Brighton Dome and other selected venues and was accompanied by a 40-page programme. Ticket prices were nearly all £6 per screening.
Pentecost, as part of the organising committee, also helps to decide which films will win prizes at the festival. Her favourite film genre is horror.
She noticed that people were submitting a few horror films to the festival and these films did not fit in with the other categories.
So, this year, Pentecost coordinated a new horror strand of films with its own separate screening – and it sold out.
“I like vampire films,” she says. So she was pleased that this year a vampire film called One for the Road won the Best Moment prize. This was for a deliciously frightening moment – known in film circles as a jump scare – when audiences jump with fright.
The team at Oska Bright try to make the experience special. When Pentecost was introducing the horror films, she dressed in an outfit from one of the films, and props and other items were on stage – and lucky Molly Wells got to dress as an Egyptian mummy when she was checking tickets at the door. “It was interactive,” says Pentecost.
I mention that I had managed to attend two Oska Bright screenings of selected films from the festival at the Barbican in London. One was billed as a Best of the Fest and the other featured films from the Wild Women strand.
This is another that Pentecost coordinated: “Wild Women was my strand that I founded two years ago. I didn’t like it that women weren’t seen so much in the industry, directing films, so I put them on the screen. It went down well. We got better films with women directors.”
Pentecost’s favourite film from the women’s strand was a film called Miss Odd, which was directed by Robyn Wisker-Stilling. She adds: “Yeah, it was a good film. It was an animation.”
The film tells the story of an autistic woman who is a silent DJ who has learnt to cope with the sometimes disapproving attitudes and name-calling from others.
“It was made by an autistic person, and it was an insight into their world, what they struggle with and stuff like that,” says Pentecost.
Miss Odd won the Women In Film award at the festival this year.
The festival veteran is keen now to have more people join the committee that views and judges the films. Who would be good to join in? “Everyone who likes interesting films. Our group is the most inclusive group ever, just because we’re friendly and we invite people in.”
On tour to the mainstream
In the periods between each festival, Oska Bright goes on tour, showing the films at various locations around the country and offering training for cinema staff.
Pentecost says the training is to help people “to accept learning disability and autism”. The team also go to schools to talk about their work and some schools have put on screenings of films picked by students.
Sometimes, committee members go to other film festivals and sit on panels. For instance, Matthew Hellett, lead programmer, went to Scotland to talk about Oska Bright’s very successful Queer Freedom strand of films.
Pentecost has been involved with Oska Bright in campaigning for autism-friendly relaxed screenings, where the volume in the cinema is lowered, lights are left on and customers can choose their seats and move about if they wish during a screening.
Pentecost describes herself as hard of hearing and is encouraging people who are deaf and hearing impaired to submit films; she plans to have silent screenings with subtitles “so people can see what it is like”.
Women weren’t seen in the industry, directing films, so I put them in. It went down well
One of the best bits she says is when people win awards when they don’t think that they will. This year, she picked out Tommy Jessop who starred in a short film called Birdhouse, which won Best Story for 2026.
Jessop plays a man with learning disabilities whose flat is being used by a criminal gang, a practice known as cuckooing.
Jessop was taken completely by surprise. “He didn’t think the film would win awards. He didn’t say anything much,” says Pentecost. “He was shocked. He was just dancing the whole time. He was literally just happy. Lovely.”
Global growth
She has no doubts about the wider purpose of the Oska Bright film festival. “We’re inclusive and we show the world that learning disabled and autistic people can do anything that everyone else can do”.
So Oska Bright is trying to change the world? “Yes, because we are international. This year, 16 different countries submitted films which is a lot more than we’ve had in the past.”
Talk of trying to change the world makes me wonder whether Pentecost feels that things are improving for people with learning disabilities and autism.
“Yes,” is the answer. “It is a lot better than it used to be.” Why is that? “Just that we’re more accepted. People’s attitudes are better. They understand a lot more now.”
Sometimes, she says people are still rude and horrible to those with learning disabilities and autism “but not so much now”.
Pentecost tells me that she feels that when you watch a film “you get to see insights of other people”. The films are “the voices of learning disabled people and autistic people speaking their own words to people”.
It is impossible not to feel the power which she finds in these short films.
