AbilityFEST 2019 India International Disability Film Festival
AbilityFEST 2019 India International Disability Film Festival came to a close on Thursday, 12 September 2019 with the screening of the highly acclaimed film ‘Still Alice’ (USA). This year’s edition of the festival included short films, documentaries and feature films by, with and about disability, from as many as 18 countries.

The four days of AbilityFEST 2019 were a real roller-coaster ride of emotions, and the films were inspiring, amusing, heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, but always thought-provoking.

Our presentations include the highly awarded ‘Chuskit’ from India, the Oscar winning film from the UK, ‘The Silent Child’, acclaimed films ‘Still Alice’ (for which Julianna Moore won the Oscar for Best Actress) and ‘CODA’ from the USA, the charming  ‘Shakespeare in Tokyo’ (Australia), the moving  ‘Zamani Barayé Masti Asbha’ (A Time for Drunken Horses) from Iran, the inspiring ‘The Sunflower Inn’ (UK) and the endearing animation film ‘Ian’ (Argentina), to mention just a few. 

The Polish director Monika Melen was in Chennai along with cinematographer Roman Piotrowski to present her charming, acclaimed documentary ‘Film Dla Stasia’ (By Stanley for Stanley). Brad Bailey flew in from the United States to present his award-winning film ‘Hale’ on disability activist Hale Zukas.

One of the highlights of the festival was the first audio described screening for the blind of the Tamil blockbuster film ‘Viswasam’. It was an overwhelming experience for everyone present – including the over 150 blind people in the audience, director Siva, and the team from Qube and Cine Hive who executed the audio description.

The words of M. Gokulraj, who was in the audience that day, said it all: “Usually, I would not be aware of what was happening on the screen. I would hear the dialogue and assume the rest. I did not know what audio description was, before this show. But it was super, and I was able to visualise each scene".

AbilityFEST 2019 was made possible thanks to the support of many people, and we deeply appreciate their generosity.

Our Gold Sponsors were CavinKare Pvt Ltd, Sathyabama Institute of Science & Technology and AVT. Our Silver Sponsors were Redington Foundation, HDFC, Norton and Super Auto Forge. Our partners were Moviebuff (Technical partner), Qube (Content management partner), Blue Dart (Logistics partner) and Kesar (Gift partner). We were supported by The Hindu, JFW, Radio One, e-Parampara and The Raintree. Supporting us with films were the US Consulate-General, British Council, the Honorary Consulate of Ireland, InKo Centre and Culture House