The Oska Bright Film Festival opens this weekend with a major new work being performed at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange. This festival, founded in 2004, aims to increase the number of people with learning disabilities and autism both on screen and within the industry, and they have an impressive programme of events planned across Brighton and Hove over the next few days.
The festival starts with a screening of Being Ola at the Corn Exchange on Saturday, 28th March at 7 pm. This film focuses on Ola, a learning disabled man who lives in a community in Norway, not far from Oslo. The community is made up of 150 people, including those living with and without disabilities. When Ola’s friend leaves the community, he has the opportunity to reflect on life and how he can become more independent. This warm-hearted story is all about equality and embracing life, and its opportunities will give us a great insight into a life we may not have known about.
Ragnhild Nøst Bergem has created the film, and I was lucky enough to meet her and Ola himself on a recent interview. She talked about how the film’s integrity had been central to her creative process, finding a way to illustrate the lives in this community to show how they operate and function as a unit. Meeting Ola himself was a great treat – he is funny, insightful and not phased by being an unexpected celebrity. He is hoping that everyone comes and sees this film so that more of us understand how he lives and why it is important to him.
As the opening item at the festival, the event will also introduce the Oska Bright team with a keynote speech from Matthew Hellett and a question-and-answer session with the Being Ola team.
The festival continues until 2nd April with an impressive range of events, including ones based around poetry, animation, horror, and queer freedom. The full programme of events can be found here.
Performance Date – Saturday28th Marchh – 7.00 pm
Tickets are available from £6.00 from Brighton Dome.
Access information is available here.
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