The 38th annual Superfest Disability Film Festival, the longest-running disability film festival in the world, begins on October 17. This is the first year that the festival, a unique celebration of art, disability, and community, is being co-hosted by the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Disability Cultural Center.
Last year’s festival was attended in-person and virtually by over 800 people. This year, the festival is again hybrid with in-person screenings on October 19 in San Francisco, and four days of virtual access to all 18 film entries opening on October 17. According to a press release, “This year’s festival promises films and storytelling that bring depth and breadth to disabled lives and experiences.”
Alice Wong will help open the festival at a virtual event on October 17 featuring a panel discussion with disabled filmmakers Malak Al Sayyad, Jason DaSilva, and Shaina Ghuraya. The panelists will discuss the new Disabled BIPOC Film Collective. Registration for the event is free at https://dcc.page/superfest24-opening.
The October 19 in-person programming includes an afternoon panel discussion at the Exploratorium at Pier 15 in San Francisco.
Past films showcased at Superfest include the 2018 short film and 2019 Superfest Juror’s Choice award winner, The Gallery. The protagonist in the film is played by Díana Bermudez, who also voices one of the characters in last year’s multiple game awards Game-of-the-Year winner, Baldur’s Gate 3. The Gallery, a deeply mesmerizing and thought-provoking film directed by Anthony Ing, is an exploration of marginalization, colonization, and the white gaze. The story is a metaphor for how marginalized people have to perform for the white gaze, which can include being tasked to oppress other marginalized groups, and in the end still find themselves locked out of white status and privilege.
On a brighter note(!), this year’s festival features the outstanding short film, One Night Stand, directed by Shaina Ghuraya and Marie Alyse Rodriguez. One Night Stand is a hilarious but also very human story about a girl in a wheelchair who for one night, just wants to feel desirable, not lovable. What I really like about the film is the quirky and sometimes inexplicable behaviors of the characters. For example, why does Grace (played by Caitlin Parr) suddenly bolt from the room? These little magical moments help us to get to know and appreciate the characters’ personalities, which feel fully developed and not there just to move the plot forward. It also feels like there is a lot of backstory here that we are not privy to, and the film as a vignette seems to pick up as if we’re opening a book somewhere in the middle of a story. These are interesting people with great journeys still ahead.
This year’s Superfest lineup features 18 films with closed audio description and captioning on demand that can be streamed anytime between Thursday, October 17 and Sunday, October 20. Passes for all events, including the in-person screenings, can be ordered at https://superfest.eventive.org/passes/buy.
The festival will close out with a virtual event on Sunday, October 20, in which online festival attendees can join a virtual Community Conversation with the Superfest filmmakers and other attendees to discuss thoughts and reactions. Registration for the event is free at: https://dcc.page/superfest2024-community-chat.
The entire 2024 Superfest film lineup can be found at https://superfestfilm.org/2024-films. More information about Superfest can be found at https://superfestfilm.org/superfest-2024-festival-page.
