“Educate yourself about what it is to collaborate with someone who is different from you”

Shweta Ghosh on accessibility in film and filmmakers with disabilities

Namaste, and welcome new subscribers. I’m Priti, an independent journalist, editor, researcher and trainer and the author of this newsletter, which is on a break for a few weeks! However, I’d like to share with you a interview with Shweta Ghosh, published in an earlier edition. Shweta is a Lecturer in Screen Practices and Industries at the Department of Film, Theatre & Television, at the University of Reading, U.K.

[Logo ID: Since Substack doesn’t permit alt-text on logos, I’ll describe it here: “On a bright purple background, two white hand illustrations form an open rectangular frame. Inside the frame, the words ‘Reframing Disability’ are written in white text, symbolising a fresh perspective on disability.]

Shweta’s PhD project We Make Film, explored disability and access to filmmaking in contemporary urban India. It has made original contributions to the field of disability studies, film practice, and pedagogy and received multiple awards for filmmaking and impact. Her debut film Accsex (on disability and sexuality) was awarded Special Mention at the 61st National Film Awards and has been used extensively for research, training and advocacy.

Set in contemporary India, We Make Film (2021) in 80 minutes highlights social attitudes to disability and filmmaking. Shot with three filmmakers with disabilities, the documentary shows the inaccessibility of film and video technology, barriers to film consumption and education, and how filmmakers find ways to articulate their creative vision.

Last year, two reports revealed the status of representation and barriers related to disability in film:

• FWD-Doc’s Accessibility Scorecard Impact Report found that of the 353 respondents, 75% of respondents with disabilities reported some form of inaccessibility during their film festival experience. Issues included venue accessibility not being accurately reported on the event website, inaccessible seating processes, festival volunteers not being trained on access features, and panels and Q&As not being moderated accessibly.

• Inevitable Foundation’s recent survey with over 1,000 respondents found that 66% of the audiences were “unsatisfied” with disability and mental health representation in entertainment.

  “By investing in authentic disabled storytelling and ensuring multi-dimensional portrayals of characters with disabilities and mental health conditions, entertainment industry leaders have an opportunity to increase audience satisfaction, foster trust and tap into an underutilised market segment,” the report stated.

In her interview, Shweta Ghosh unpacks accessibility in film and for filmmakers.

Inclusion Begins With A Curiosity About What People With Disabilities Can Offer

Priti: What did you do to make the filmmaking inclusive for your participants and the crew while filming We Make Film?

Shweta: Priyanka Pal – the assistant director of We Make Film –  has both filmmaking and accessibility experience, so she was our advisor on that front. We kept reviewing and engaging with our participants about what would make the process accessible for them. [Apart from] pre-research, we had constant check-ins and conversations about access. That helped us to develop a relationship of exchange during the workshop, rather than a top-down approach of sharing knowledge and ideas.

We did different things with different people in terms of access. With Priyanka (who uses crutches to walk) we took cabs, for example, as opposed to local trains, and booked accessible hotels.

Among the three participants in our film, one was blind, one was a signing d/Deaf person and the third was a lip-reading deaf person. We facilitated sign language interpreters for the participant who signs.

Priyanka, who also knows sign language, was observing the interactions to make sure that any interpretation that was happening was accurate. If an interpreter was making the meaning too tight and concise, she would ask them to tell us a little more about the texture of what was said. So when you look at access, it’s not just about having an interpreter, but making sure that the meaning is genuinely understood and conveyed.

Anuja (a participant who is blind), was comfortable being in her own home, so we shot there. When we're looking at access, it's not just about making that space accessible, but also that people must be in a happy place doing five-day-long workshops with you. So, we made sure to make those spaces as comfortable as possible for all of us.

Priti: What did you learn about the status of disabled filmmakers in India while making this film?

Shweta: Within urban India, technology has reached a point where a lot of disabled people who have access to good technology continue to experiment, make films, and tell their stories themselves. But, there are very few people in formal education, and even if they are, they try, very often, not to identify as disabled for various reasons, because there are implications to making a disability apparent. But that's also partly due to the way we understand ourselves as Indians. In India, we identify with [various other intersectional identities such as] our gender, regional and linguistic identity. Disability often becomes less of a thing to mention within these intersectional identities as people find that it's not something that is helping them get ahead in life. So, the representation of filmmakers identifying as disabled or d/Deaf in India is very low.

Priti: What does the industry need to do for the inclusion of disabled filmmakers to make it easier for them to get a break and thrive?

Shweta: It has to be a three-pronged approach from the industry, academia and the government. I know I'm asking for a lot, but the lobbying has to happen at every point, because they're interconnected structures. The industry needs to start by genuinely being curious about what disabled people have to offer, as opposed to making it about “how much they have achieved”. That cannot happen unless people entering the industry have changed perspectives. So, making more space for inclusive practices, and being more open are important. But unless we have a basic understanding within the education [system], by having schools where you can have a disabled person study with you, it won’t change the way you understand disability. So it has to happen through government intervention, funding prioritisation, and access across all spheres.

In the short term, each time someone is looking for a performer, especially on a topic related to disability, there's no reason why there can't be someone disabled in the team. Prioritise resources towards finding people who can actually make the storytelling authentic. Educate yourself about what it is to collaborate with someone who is different from you, with empathy, kindness, understanding and knowing that [they have a] right to work.

Longer term changes will mean that there is more space, more funding for disabled people to pursue careers in the field, which is still far away. Policy changes, and education are needed from the government.

When it comes to film or media specific education, we just need to follow the inclusive education principles in all of our institutions, spaces, and filmmaking materials.

We also need to think hard about why when we talk about equality, we're still not prioritising disabled people. Why do disability issues and accessibility never feel urgent enough to anybody?

Priti: How have you seen accessibility in filmmaking evolve over the past decade or so?

Shweta: There are two ways in which we can understand accessibility and film. One is the process, the behind-the-scenes, and the other is what we see in the product. So, if you talk about the product, captions and audio descriptions are more apparent, more visible to everyone, because of OTT platforms in the last decade. Now there's integrated audio description (where things happening on the screen are integrated in the dialogue), creative audio description, creative captioning (Captions that are integrated into set design and are included as part of the creative process for a theatre production), which extend the meaning, rather than simply translate the meaning. Behind the scenes, obviously, a lot more work has happened in the North American, Australian and European contexts. So there's loads of toolkits and information available about how to make things accessible. There are collectives and campaigns. The TV Access Project in the UK, for example, has brought broadcasters together to make sure that podcasting is accessible.

In India, I am aware of the [policy discussions on film accessibility] last year, which is a good starting point. Once that becomes compulsory, I think it will create a bit of a shift in how people understand the importance of it. It's just about making it visible to non disabled people. The nondisabled perspective in film needs to be decentred - that is just one of many ways to make and experience films.

I'm a part of the editorial team for Screenworks, a journal of practice-based research in film and screen media. We have had an accessibility policy since 2021, which means that any work being published into the journal needs to be made accessible via a transcript and captions at the very minimum, and ideally, audio descriptions. Such practices can inform film academia, because many times people don't quite think through what the requirements of disabled people entering film education might be in the academic world.

Priti: Could you explain the difference between integrated audio description and creative audio description?

Shweta: The terms creative audio description and integrated audio description sometimes get used interchangeably. But the way I understand it is that integrated audio description includes the description of visual elements within the script of the film. For example, if there is a voiceover, it describes visuals and has other expressive elements that a voiceover normally would. Integrated audio description is usually created at the scripting stage in pre-production. Creative audio descriptions can be created at the point of scripting or later in post-production. It is one step ahead of the general audio description we encounter, and moves beyond 'neutral' tones and basic descriptions, and adds texture and detail that tells us something more about the character or moment. So instead of saying "A white man wearing a blue shirt enters from the left", one would say "A white man saunters in lazily, wearing an unevenly buttoned palm tree print shirt".

Priti: How common is the study of accessibility in filmmaking?

Shweta: It is not uncommon, but it happens very much in terms of disability representation on screen. Whether it's film studies or disability studies, you'll find a lot of work on on-screen representation. Off-screen, there is more in terms of industry interventions such as Press Reset, Nonfiction Access Initiative and FWD-Doc. So there'll be more conversation on how to make things more inclusive on the industry front than in terms of academic research on film production contexts or making film education more accessible. Although it is on the increase again, more in the Western world. What I do find is that there's a lot of work going on in translation and interpretation-related fields, which is related to deaf experiences or audio description related blind experiences, but it is not connected to either disability studies or film studies. Work is happening in slightly siloed disciplines at the moment, and it's not quite speaking to each other.

Priti: Do you teach accessibility to your students?

Shweta: Yeah, absolutely. We have some students who identify as physically disabled, but we have many who identify as disabled for many other reasons, especially neurodivergence and mental health. So the representation of disabled students in my class is higher, and hence the conversations can be a bit more informed already. That said, there are enough non-disabled perspectives still entrenched and while they don't have the saviour mindset, they often have the “this-has-nothing-to-do-with-me” mindset.

[In the classroom, we often discuss] who we are in relation to this world when it comes to the concept of disability [regardless of our own abilities]. We're all responsible in different ways, to change this world.

Priti: What would you suggest the media should do to uplift disability representation?

Shweta: There are enough resources out there, so the media needs to educate itself about what's already there. Enough disabled people themselves have spoken about how they want to be represented. Also, let people in, because there are so many disabled people who are ready to tell their story, but don’t find the space or enough opportunities to do that. In terms of goals and priorities, especially in the Indian context, we are still so stuck in the “see what they have achieved” type of narratives that we're still very far away from just having human beings who are disabled in our popular media, and popular culture.

Narratives should try to explore the “how” of the achievements, and keep it human. They should not make it look like a disabled person achieved it all in a vacuum by themselves. Explore their assistive tools, motivations and interests. It has to be about “disability and…” as opposed to “despite” their disability. Someone might be disabled and a woman, or disabled and an athlete. Stories should be explored from the lens of those intersectional identities.

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Shweta’s Recommendations

Watch

• Notes on Blindness (James Spinney and Peter Middleton, 2016, UK). A dramatisation of writer and theologian John Hull’s audio diary of the three years after losing his sight in 1983. Shweta finds the film to be “an excellent combination of archival material and re-enactment in a documentary and an example of how films can be creatively captioned, audio described and expanded into VR/AR experiences.”

• Descriptive captions by artist Christine Sun Kim.

Listen

• Podcast series Disability Arts Online. Disability Arts Online is a wonderful online space for arts and media-related opportunities, discussions and resources. “This podcast series, although global North focused, has some excellent conversations on critical themes related to disability as well as several forms of art and creative expression,” Shweta says.

• Longer conversations on the process of collaboration between Shweta and Priyanka Pal during We Make Film:

  • Together Film Festival 2021

  • Art Heals All Wounds - Season 4, Episode 14 (scroll down)

Read

Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability Justice. A transcript of a talk by Mia Mingus, who coined the term, access intimacy. Mia is a writer, educator and community organiser for transformative justice and disability justice.

Shweta says: “Mingus’ work, alongside Leah-Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Alice Wong and others, speaks of joy, connection and solidarity and is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding and/or working towards disability justice.”

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Courses

Screen acting courses for Deaf and Disabled people

The Chennai-based nonprofit Yes We Too Can runs these courses periodically. Contact them for details.

PG Diploma in Media and Disability Communication

Run by the University of Mumbai, this one-year course offers training on accessible media production.

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Until soon.

Warmly,

Priti