Easterseals Disability Film Challenge

The Easterseals Disability Film Challenge is a short film competition. It aims to give filmmakers “the opportunity to collaborate to tell unique stories that showcase disability in its many forms.”
==YouTube==
The Easterseals Disability Film Challenge uploaded its first video, "Close Up" - Runner Up Winner 2014 Disability Film Challenge, on January 6, 2015. The film is about people making a disability related film. Clint, the disabled character, is in a wheelchair.
==Challenge==
The film challenge is a weekend-long competition in which filmmakers write, produce and complete an original three-to-five minute films. Filmmaking teams receive an assigned genre along with a list of required props and locations.
Teams are strongly encouraged to integrate story elements that acknowledge disability and include at least one disabled person.
The challenge was created by actor Nic Novicki, who has dwarfism, as a response to lack of disability representation in film.
==Winners==
===2014===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Runner Up 	Close Up 	Uses a wheelchair	A filmmaking team enters a competition in which they need to feature a disability. The filmmakers are disqualified, and the disabled character ends up in a relationship with his female co-star.
Best Actor 	Disabilidates	Prosthetic leg 	Tiffany sets up an online dating profile for her friend Rachel, who lost her leg in a car accident, and has a prosthetic. Rachel goes on a date with Drew, who asks persistent conditions about her disability. She storms off in anger, but later phones him and asks to go on another date.
Best Filmmaker	Wheelz 	Uses a wheelchair	Two children meet a disabled man at a baseball game. One of the children asks about his drinking habit.
Best Film 	Hands Down 	Prosthetic hands 	John discusses the issues he faces as a result of forgetting that he no longer has hands with a psychologist, and is diagnosed with selective amnesia. They repeat the phrase “know my limitations, and then defy them.” John then attends his brother’s pool party, where he dives in, having forgotten that his disability prevents him from swimming. He is rescued by a woman, and they fall in love.
===2015===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Best Awareness Campaign	I Understand You	Down’s syndrome 	Sophia describes her nervousness about her upcoming dance recital to her brother Miguel, who has Down’s syndrome. Miguel drops a large jar of coins on the floor, which contained Sophia’s lucky coin. She yells at him, then leaves for recital. Miguel finds the coin, and their father takes the coin to the recital.
Best Actor 	Spanish Love 101	Unspecified physical disability 	John has told his partner, Maria, about his disabled friend Steve. Maria assumed John is Steve’s carer, and they go along with it. Maria speaks Spanish, but Steve does, and John doesn’t understand that she is saying that she only wanted to meet Steve. Off camera, Steve and Maria share a kiss. John is completely unaware of this.
Best Filmmaker 	Passengers 	Deafness 	A deaf taxi driver speaks to a variety of passengers. Another deaf passenger, using sign language, asks to go “Somewhere we can see the city.” They fall in love, and go. The passenger leaves his keys in the car, so the driver hurriedly leaves to give him them back. It turns out that the keys belonged to a previous passenger, and the men share a kiss.
Best Film 	Bumblebees 	Autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy	Vance Kannel discusses exceeding expectations, and he goes on a date.
===2016===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Best Awareness Campaign	Minority Effect	Wheelchair users	A non-disabled man goes about his day in a world where the vast majority of people use wheelchairs. At the end of the film, he attends a community meeting, and is accepted.
Best Actor 	Boxed Out 	Unspecified 	Annie’s boyfriend Ted has gone missing, and she files a police report with Detective Davis. Ted’s roommate, Frank, consistently asks Detective Davis to define mundane phrases such as “living upstairs.” They find Ted, unharmed, stuck on the roof of the building. Frank locked him up there due to a long standing basketball rivalry.
Best Filmmaker 	(in)visible 	Unspecified 	A woman angrily enters Bjorn’s home, He uses a crutch and has speech difficulties. The woman has found out who is responsible for something that happened to her and Bjorn, and threatens to kill him. She leaves, and Bjorn picks up a gun.
Best Film 	Lefty & Loosey 	Prosthetic limbs	Lefty and & Loosey are private investigators. They both lost limbs in an incident where they were part of a bomb squad. Miss Pamela Garrett asks them to investigate the disappearance of her boyfriend. Lefty & Loosey hack the boyfriend’s phone, and in doing so prevent a bomb explosion he had planned. “N,” the head of the Global Intelligence Agency, thanks them for saving New York City, but tells them they will be taken into custody, in order to keep the situation secret. Instead, they tell Pamela that her boyfriend ran off with another woman.
===2017===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Best Actor 	Whitney’s Wedding 	Down’s syndrome 	Whitney, who has Down’s syndrome, is getting married to a man without Down’s). Most of the characters in the film have Down’s, and refer to people without it as having “46 Chromosome syndrome.”
Best Filmmaker 	Siblings Liebencrantz	One hand (Declan)Uses a wheelchair (Meredith) 	Siblings Declan, Meredith, Ezra, and Henry share an apartment. Declan moves out after creating a successful web series about colourful foods. Meredith, Ezra, and Henry try filming their own content, which is unsuccessful. Declan then moves back in after one of his videos gets only ten views.
Best Film and Best Awareness Campaign	Best Friend 	Unspecified (Dierdre)Uses a wheelchair (Buddy)	A couple are moving to California, and their daughter Dierdre is struggling with leaving New York. The estate agent suggests that they get her a dog. She goes to a shelter, where she befriends Alvie, who helps her pick a dog, which she names Peanut. Alvie’s dog, Buddy, uses a wheelchair. Dierdre and Alvie later discover that they live next to each other.
===2018===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Best Awareness Campaign	Footloose 	(Tatiana)Prosthetic leg (Kat)	Two women discuss their disabilities. Kat lost her leg in military service.
Best Actor 	Visibility	Wheelchair users 	Henry (nicknamed “Hawk”), and Brian rob a bar.
Best Filmmaker 	Hit On 	Uses a wheelchair 	The disabled character is hit by Lily’s car. He is unhurt, and she helps him back into his wheelchair, then takes him back to his home. That evening, they go on a date.
Best Film 	Check Mate	Uses a wheelchair 	Rivals Chad (the wheelchair user) and Zach argue over which of them should be a woman’s new roommate. After being locked out for three hours, they become friends and decide to move in together.
===2019===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Best Film 	Parents Inc.	Prosthetic legs 	Olivia lives in a post-apocalyptic world. Her father kills her plant, and doesn’t let her spend time with her boyfriend, Conner. She switches him off with a remote control. She leaves the house with Conner, and her mother tells her to be back before 8:00pm. Olivia switches her mother off with the remote. At the edn of the film, she orders new parents, and it is revealed that this will be her 100th delivery.
Best Actor 	Human Helper	Uses a wheelchair 	In the near future, artificially intelligent robots, also known as human helpers, are a part of everyday life, but are ableist. Dr. Rachel Hubbert and her assistant Tony make it their mission to fix this. Ali, the first human helper, sees Rachel, who is in a wheelchair, and begins repeating “Error.” Other “helpers” perceive Rachel as a child, or ask “What is wrong with you?” Through an anecdote from Tony about a racially biased teacher, Rachel decides to program Ali to see the wheelchair, and finally achieves success.
Best Director 	I/O 	Uses a wheelchair 	Rob, a disabled man, struggles to reveal to his girlfriend that he’s been dating her through a robot, which he pilots from his garage. The projected outcome of this is “negative.” He then falls in love with a waitress maned Pamela. He tells her, and it is revealed that Pamela is also a robot, piloted by an older woman.
Best Awareness Campaign	The Vanished	Uses crutches and has a prosthetic leg	Alice’s friends begin to disappear. The next day, the exact events repeat, as different people disappear. At the end of the film, she must choose between constantly reliving the experience, or vanishing into the unknown.
===2020===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
WarnerMedia Best Awareness Campaign	The Fish Don’t Care When It Rains	Autism 	Jennifer Msumba describes her life as an autistic artist. She has lived in facilities since the age of fifteen, and describes autism as “the vehicle that defines (her) unique voice.” The film includes original music and animation.
WarnerMedia Best Editor Award 	How Much Am I Worth? 	Prosthetic leg	This film explores the failings of the US healthcare system, with testimonies from patients such as Rachel, who received a bill of $1,165.62 after surgery.
Adobe Best Film Award 	Autism Ability 	Autism 	Scott Klumb discusses the impact that autism has on his filmmaking and life. He describes filmmaking as “a highly effective coping mechanism.”
===2021===
Award 	Title 	Disability 	Plot
Best Actor 	Nay Nay Too Bomb 	Blindness 	A documentary about Chardonnay Royal Banks, a hip-hop star known as Nay Nay Too Bomb.
Best Editor Award 	The Home Office (The Making of Cartoon HQ)	Autism 	A mockumentary about an animation studio run by cartoon characters, during a performance review. Dani Bowman, an animator, appears in the video when she runs into a bug, and chats with her team of twelve, nine of whom are autistic.
Best Awareness Award 	Social Fitness 	Unspecified	Mimi teaches a “Social-fitness” class in a post COVID-19 world. All but one person has failed the week’s assignment, which was to meet one real person in real life.
Best Film and Best Director	Dwarfo-psychosis 	Dwarfism 	Peter and Pat are fraternal twins. Pat has dwarfism, Peter has dwarfo-psychosis (a fictitious disorder where one believes they are a little person. There is one known case in the world.) They discuss their lives, and in their 40th birthday, Pat gifts Peter a note which reads “Peter Bianco, you are not a little person. Doctor.” Peter remains in denial about his height.
===2022===
The 2022 theme was "Superheroes."
Title 	Disability 	Plot
Mac & Cheese 	Prosthetic leg 	Manny, who has a prosthetic leg, eats his roommate's macaroni and cheese. They argue, then the scene replays numerous times with different outcomes. After a scene where he falls over n a corridor, he wakes up in a liminal space, where a woman tells him that he can go back in time, but cannot change anything. He goes back, and does not eat the macaroni and cheese.
ILY 	Deafness, prosthetics, uses a wheelchair	ILY is about five girlfriends in their early twenties. They talk about their careers, dating, sex, and relationships. One has tried to audition for the role of a disabled character, but found that the elevator was out of service.
Superhero Inc.	Sensory issues, mobility struggles, tics	A telekinetic job hunter interviews for the "Junior Hero Position." When she asks whether they have any disabled employees, the interviewer simply says "Ew." She discusses being filmed walking out of a grocery store. She does not get the job, but is still asked about being used for inspiration.
Seven 	Blindness 	Seven, a 19 year old girl, finds out that she is "the next slayer," and the only one who can save the world. She trains with her "watcher," Mr. Gordon, but they argue. Seven speaks to a piano player, then returns to training.
==References==
Category:Film YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2014