Is There Anybody Out There?

A film by Ella Bee Glendining

United Kingdom | 2023 | 87 minutes | Color | English | Order No. W241311 |

While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her, and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism.

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SYNOPSIS

Born with no hip joints and short femurs, a condition so rare that there is little reliable information about it, Ella Glendining decides to go in search of people who can share their experience and feelings about having a body like hers. In doing so, she challenges lazy ableist assumptions, experiences a number of unexpected surprises and encounters people who look like her. With great warmth and an infectious joy for her body and life as it is, Glendining challenges us to question the way we see others, like and unlike ourselves. IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? is a revelatory film that gently tugs at the viewer’s biases and looks to a day when inclusivity is no longer an ‘issue.'

PRESS

"Like 2020 Sundance breakout CRIP CAMP, Glendining’s film is a well argued and moving reminder that we still live in a world where too many see disability as something that needs to be ‘fixed’ rather than more willingly accommodated."

Screen Daily

"An exploration of what it takes to love yourself fiercely as a disabled person in an ableist world."

Naman Ramachandran Variety

"**** Ella Glendining’s intelligent documentary challenges the discriminatory attitudes she faces as a young woman with a rare physical disability."

Peter Bradshaw The Guardian

“Quite simply one of the best first-person documentaries about disability available.”

Nadine Whitney The Curb

"an unexpectedly badass victory cry"

Reel News Daily

"a profoundly inspiring celebration of identity and a true act of love"

That Shelf

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • Silver Horn Social Issues Award, Krakow FF 2023
  • FIPRESCI Award, Krakow FF 2023
  • Bring The Change Award - Arca di Noè, Biografilm Festival 2023
  • Nominee, Best Debut Director - Feature Documentary, British Independent Film Awards
  • Sundance Film Festival
  • South by Southwest Film Festival
  • Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival
  • Hot Docs Film Festival
  • Sydney Film Festival
  • Doc NYC
  • Sheffield Documentary Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Ella Bee Glendining

Ella Glendining is a writer-director dedicated to telling authentic disabled stories, drawing on her own experience with a congenital, rare leg disability. She has written and directed short films with backing from Film4, the BFI, Arts Council England, Screen South, and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust. Glendining was named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow 2020. She is currently writing a feature fiction film called CURIOSITIES OF FOOLS for the BFI.

Director: Ella Glendining
Producer: Janine Marmot
Executive Producers: Lisa Marie Russo, Nikki Parrott, Mark Thomas, Natasha Dack Ojumu
Production Company: Hot Property Films LTD
Co-Production Company: Tigerlilly Two
Cinematography: Annemarie Lean-Vercoe
Editor: Rachel Roberts
Music: Erland Cooper

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