Shadow
Directed by Bruce Gladwin
Written by Mark Deans, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, Michael Chan, Sonia Teuben
Starring Mark Deans, Scott Price, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Breanna Deleo, Brian Lipson, Ben Oakes
Showing nationally as part of聽Sydney Film Festival, Revelation Perth International Film Festival and Darwin Festival
Shadow is a production of Geelong-based Back to Back Theatre, which has presented work produced and performed by people with disabilities for 30 years.
The film is an adaptation of the聽company鈥檚 stage play, The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes. The script was workshopped, written and performed by the cast 鈥 all but one of whom is a person with a disability 鈥斅燼nd聽filmed by people with disabilities.
Shadow聽allows people with disabilities to represent themselves聽and blows apart conventional assumptions.
The plot follows a town hall meeting organised and led by three people with disabilities to discuss the prospects of computerised artificial intelligence on the lives of people with disabilities. Does AI聽have the capacity to liberate or enslave not just people with disabilities but other people as well?
Using Bertold Brecht鈥檚 techniques of political theatre, the ensemble combines a history of the oppression of people with disabilities, theoretical debates about the terms 鈥渄isability鈥 and 鈥渘euro-diversity鈥 and the struggle against misogyny.
It is a tour de force of intelligence, creativity and humour, with many unexpected twists and turns.
The people with disabilities speaking up in Shadow are speaking for the liberation of all.
[The trailer for聽Shadow can be seen .]