Is There Anybody Out There?
A film by Ella Bee Glendining
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.
United Kingdom | 2023 | 87 minutes | Color | English | Order No. W241311 |
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."
"An exploration of what it takes to love yourself fiercely as a disabled person in an ableist world."
"**** Ella Glendining’s intelligent documentary challenges the discriminatory attitudes she faces as a young woman with a rare physical disability."
“Quite simply one of the best first-person documentaries about disability available.”
"an unexpectedly badass victory cry"
"a profoundly inspiring celebration of identity and a true act of love"
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.
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