Hollywood Inclusion

The Bentonville Film Festival (BFF), taking place June 16-22, is highlighting several disability-inclusive films. Chaired by Academy Award winner Geena Davis, BFF champions women and diverse voices.

According to festival programmers, 12% of the films in the competition categories have a director who identifies as disabled. In addition, 17% of these films include a lead character with a disability. These numbers are less than in 2023, when  “over 30% of the (competition) program is comprised of creators with disabilities” and “25% (of onscreen leads) represent talent with disabilities.” However, the 2025 numbers are an increase from 2021, when eight percent of the directors, four percent of the writers, and four percent of the leads identified as having a disability.
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“I know my words carry power.”

SPEAK. follows five high school students as they prepare and compete in one of the world’s largest public speaking competitions. Viewers learn the stories of Noor, Noah, Sam, Mfaz, and Esther, the two-time reigning national champion in the Oratory division.

SPEAK. is at times electric and at others contemplative, inviting reflection as well as moments of bold, unrestrained energy. Although Disability Belongs™ often reviews films that are centered around disabled protagonists or plotlines, SPEAK. is not, at its core, a story only about disability. Teenage orators share stories about LGBTQIA+ equality, gun safety legislation, war in the Middle East, and more. The beauty of the disability representation in this film is that it is so natural, because it’s simply part of what makes several students who they are.

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“Don’t worry. It’s gonna be nice, David.”

The feature film Caravan opens with an out-of-focus shot, first trained on the bright overhead sun, then panning to the glimmering sea below. Gentle ambient music accompanies the soft sound of waves splashing onto the shore. Still focused on this shot, viewers hear the above words—the opening dialogue of the film—spoken in a similarly gentle manner.

Viewers soon find out that the whispered speaker is Ester, the single mother of David, a nonverbal young man with unspecified developmental disabilities. Ester serves as the protagonist, and the film centers on her relationship with her son.

Caravan evades many of the reductive tropes common to disability representation in media, and specifically, representation of caretaker relationships. It avoids depicting their life together as simply inspiring due to David being disabled; portraying Ester as an unflinching, all-good, self-sacrificing mother or David as an inanimate object with without autonomy or actions of his own; or suggesting both of their lives are full of only hardship and struggle. [continue reading…]

Inspired by personal experience, The Main Trilogy Writer and Director Abigail Bruley snapshots one person’s attempt to return to life as she knew it before acquiring a disability.

“[A]t first, I thought that I was documenting, but really, as it turned out, I was, like, mythologizing,” Bruley said in an interview with Disability Belongs™. “I was turning the phases of post-injury identity like the shame, the avoidance, the rage, the theatrical overcompensation…into something stranger and funnier than real life… kind of told through a character who’s in the ‘in-between’ and just figuring things out.”

After acquiring a disability and spending some time in the hospital recovering, the trilogy’s protagonist, Main, is reintroduced to a life that seems to have changed dramatically without her—by her friend, Lars, who in the last ten months, decided he wants to be a priest, and by her little brother, Vinny, who decided he wants to be called “Vincent.” [continue reading…]

Viewers may think they know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. However, writer/director Regan Linton has reimagined this classic tale in a new short film as part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Reframed: Next Gen Narratives program. In this series, six filmmakers adapted classic movies through a contemporary lens, tackling modern-day issues surrounding identity.

Episode Three: Jack and the Beanstalk is about a young man named Jack (Josh Elledge), who is an employee at the Beanstalk Grocery. Jack is a subminimum wage worker being exploited by his employers. Despite being an excellent worker, beloved by his colleagues and customers and recommended for a promotion by his manager, Ellie (Valentina Fittipaldi), Jack is caught off guard when the regional manager, Marge (Hannah Duggan), tries to shut his progression down. Marge cunningly cites the company’s compliance with employment laws while evading the obvious exploitation of Jack.

“That really resonated for me in relation to our disability community, and the constant battles we are fighting to be able to live fully and productively,” director Regan Linton shared in an interview with Disability Belongs™. “So, I wanted our Jack to be someone who has a lot going on underneath the surface (which most of us do), and follows the rules (however absurd they may be) in order to influence and win. And when I thought about current metaphorical ‘giants’ our community faces, there are so many, but the inherently inequitable subminimum wage issue jumped out to me.” [continue reading…]

In Sūnna (Hindi for listen), Radha Mehta invites the audience into a contemplative and atmospheric film that recognizes sound and silence as forces that can shape identity and belonging. It follows Lakshmi, a young Indian girl who experiences sudden hearing loss just as she is about to perform a cherished religious song. The film deftly explores identity, familial love, and spiritual belonging.

“I like to have sound as its own character,” Mehta shared in an interview with Disability Belongs™, “because it’s very much been its own character in my life, throughout my entire life.”

“When that sound escaped me, I felt like I was losing parts of myself,” recalled Mehta, who is hard-of-hearing herself, describing the autobiographical roots of Lakshmi’s story. “Music was all around me, [it was] so entrenched within our home.” [continue reading…]

The new unscripted digital series Divas in the City follows five disabled Black women whose tenacity and creativity make them bosses in their respective cities. Professional and playful, serious and sassy, these women with physical disabilities are trendsetters in fields ranging from fashion to the arts to the nonprofit sector.

The series is the brainchild of the show’s executive producer, Dr. Donna Walton, founder/president of The Divas With Disabilities Project (DWD), a nonprofit that provides women and girls of color with physical disabilities with unique opportunities to shape how disability is portrayed in mass media.

“I was moved to create Divas in the City because representation matters—especially for Black women with disabilities,” Walton told Disability Belongs™. “Too often, our stories are left out of mainstream media, and when we do appear, it’s rarely in a way that reflects the full depth and richness of our lives. I wanted to change that.” [continue reading…]

After Season 2 of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory explored how Brooklynn survived a dinosaur attack and was living as an amputee, Season 3 allows Brooklynn to explore using – and not using – a prosthesis.

The show handles Brooklynn’s disability brilliantly. She doesn’t need help, and she doesn’t need sympathy. She is completely capable of achieving her mission with or without the prosthetic arm. While it takes Brooklynn some time to get used to her prosthesis, she ultimately learns it is not required for her to be her full self, nor does it hinder her mission to take down Santos, the villain of the story.

“Getting a prosthesis is a personal decision that Brooklynn doesn’t get the chance to make when it’s given to her this season,” Kiersten Kelly (voice of Brooklyn) shared with Disability Belongs™. “Not knowing anything about prostheses, she’s pushed to adapt quickly and discovering ways the device can be useful to her and the different comments people give when wearing a prosthesis all while not knowing if she wants it. We see Brooklynn dealing with a lot of complex feelings, with the most important one being that she didn’t get to decide if it was right for her.” [continue reading…]

“The biggest barrier to change is this tiny sliver of fear that people have surrounding disability, and I made this film to push people over that barrier.”

The new documentary Rising Phoenix: A New Revolution grabs viewers’ attention from the opening, pulling both disabled and nondisabled audiences in to become immersed in a world full of authentic disability representation.

The film is directed by Sheridan O’Donnell, who was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease while having an active career as a filmmaker. This has slowly rendered him legally blind. Trying to navigate this new world of being disabled, O’Donnell seeks out accomplished disabled individuals from multiple sectors and walks of life, and highlights their struggles, and eventual achievements. The point of O’Donnell’s film is not to showcase these achievements in spite of disability; rather, he showcases these achievements in spite of the social perception, lack of access, and lack of understanding that too often befalls the disability community.

With a goal of redefining the world’s image of disability, the film features a variety of disabled individuals including actor Lauren Ridloff (Eternals), Paralympic Gold Medalists Ezra Frech (Track and Field) and Anastasia Pagonis (Swimming), filmmaker Jim LeBrecht (Crip Camp), MTA Chief Accessibility Officer Quemel (Q) Arroyo, Valuable 500 Founder Caroline Casey, and more. [continue reading…]