With one-in-five people having a disability in the U.S. today, lack of representation—just 2.2 percent of characters in the 100 top-grossing films of 2023—means that millions of people are unable to see themselves reflected in media.
The DC/DOX ’25 Film Festival, taking place June 12-15, is highlighting several disability-inclusive films. DC/DOX is a vibrant documentary film festival in the nation’s capital, celebrating bold voices, innovative visions, and dedicated truth-seekers in the art of non-fiction storytelling. Learn more about the festival’s accessibility options on their website. Accommodations requests should be emailed 72 hours in advance: wilma@dcdoxfest.com.
DC/DOX invites attendees to take part in the Film Event Accessibility Scorecard, presented by FWD-Doc in partnership with Film Event Accessibility Working Group with the support of Film Festival Alliance, and in association with 1IN4 Coalition. DC/DOX attendees, including filmmakers, speakers, panelists, patrons, and others, can take 15 minutes to participate in the survey and provide event organizers with meaningful feedback that can help create more accessible events.
Below, please find a guide to several of the films featuring disability in the plot and/or talent with disabilities.
Speak. (DC Premiere, Feature)
Screening on Friday, June 13, 5:45-7:30 pm at Regal Gallery Place
Follow five of the nation’s top teenage speech competitors as they experience the euphoria of victory and the sting of defeat, crafting and performing original orations over the course of a nine-month season. Their goal: to win the Super Bowl of public speaking, the NSDA Nationals. Read a review written by Entertainment & Media Fellow Gina DeRyke: What It Sounds Like When Young People SPEAK.
Life After (DC Premiere, Feature)
Screening on Friday, June 13, 6:00-8:15 pm, at the Center for American Progress. Tickets are free for this screening.
A gripping personal investigation, LIFE AFTER uncovers the tangled web of moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying. Disabled filmmaker Reid Davenport exposes shocking abuses of power while amplifying the voices of the disability community in their fight for justice and dignity in an unfolding matter of life and death. Read a review written by SVP, Entertainment and Media, Lauren Appelbaum: Reid Davenport’s “Life After” Casts Disability Into a Political Light, Wins U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award.
The Tallest Dwarf (East Coast Premiere, Feature)
Screening on Saturday, June 14, 3:15-4:15 pm, at Regal Gallery Place
Filmmaker Julie Wyman embarks on a quest to find her place within the little people (LP) community at a moment when dwarf identity is on the brink of radical transformation. As she unpacks rumors of “partial dwarfism” in her family, Julie discovers that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. She teams up with a group of dwarf artists to confront the legacy of being fetishized and put on display. Together, they create films that reclaim a complicated history and challenge the echoes of eugenics, especially in light of emerging pharmaceutical interventions aimed at making little people taller. Through its personal and expanding perspective, THE TALLEST DWARF offers audiences a new way of seeing.
Shuffle (DC Premiere, Feature)
Screening on Saturday, June 14, 3:30-5:05 pm, at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Through the lens of his own recovery, a filmmaker offers an unflinching look inside the billion-dollar addiction treatment industry where young people are bought and sold for their insurance policies and ushered into a system designed to keep them sick.
Come See Me in the Good Light (DC Premiere, Feature)
Screening on Saturday, June 14, 8:45-10:30 pm, at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
In this unexpectedly funny and joyful love story, poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley navigate life and mortality in the face of an incurable diagnosis.
Danielle Scott: Ancestral Call (DC Premiere, Short)
Screening as part of DC[FRAME] on Sunday, June 15, 1:00-2:30 pm, at Regal Gallery Place
Danielle Scott, a legally blind Afro-Cuban, Polish-Jewish, and Asian mixed-media artist at the cusp of international fame, risks her own well-being by exposing herself to the intergenerational trauma of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
