Film and Discourse
on Inclusion, Norms,
and Ableism
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES is taking place for the fourth time and has established itself in Vienna as an important forum for feminist film culture. The festival, organized by dieRegisseur*innen, brings together international and local perspectives and creates spaces for critical engagement with socially and politically relevant topics.
This year's edition is dedicated to Disability Studies, Crip Culture, and inclusive film practice. Under the motto "Nothing about us without us"—the central demand of the international disability rights movement—filmmakers with disabilities are at the center: as protagonists, as artists, as theorists, and as activists. The festival understands disability not as a deficit, but as a creative resource, as productive aesthetic practice, and as political terrain.
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES 2025 assembles international film works that open new perspectives on bodies, perception, communication, and belonging. The films emerge from inclusive production processes, were created by disabled filmmakers themselves, or develop innovative forms of accessibility. They make visible how ableism—the discrimination against disabled people—manifests itself daily: in gazes, in language, in spatial designs, in assumptions about who counts as "normal" and whose life is considered worth living.
All events will be designed as inclusively and accessibly as possible. The premises of mumok cinema are barrier-free accessible for audiences and guests.
dieRegisseur*innen is a feminist and solidary cooperative of around 120 filmmakers based in Austria, representing all creative forms of filmmaking. As a strong film-political voice with an egalitarian, transparent, and inclusive structure, the association advocates for diverse artistic approaches, different social milieus, and the variety of narrative perspectives that constitute our society.
Saturday, December 6, 2025
>> PROGRAM 1
11 am to 1 pm
GAZES AND COUNTER GAZES – Looking At Othering
The first program is dedicated to the question of the gaze—that gaze which marks people as "other," excludes them, and renders them invisible, but also to the self-determined counter-gaze that exposes and rejects norms. The four films examine from different perspectives how disability and chronic illness are socially perceived and how disabled people and chronically ill people actively challenge these perceptions.
*Apolocalypse Core (RA Walden, DE/UK 2024, 3 min) OV (EN, SDH)
*Wo wir hingehören (Jonah Wögerbauer, DE 2024, 15 min) OV (EN, SDH)
*Bist du gelähmt (Gabriele Mathes, AT 1988, 18 min) OV (EN, SDH)
*Ein Rollator für sich allein (Mario_n Porten, AT 2025, 19 min) OV (EN, SDH, integrated AD)
Followed by a conversation with directors and actors / performers Moderation: Jannik Franzen (in German, ÖGS)
>> PROGRAM 2
2 to 3.30 pm
INCLUSION I: MAKING ACCESS WORK – Processes of Inclusive Filmmaking
How is a film created when accessibility is not added afterwards but considered from the beginning? What happens when disabled people work not only in front of but also behind the camera and shape the production processes themselves? The second program is dedicated to inclusive film practice as a rethinking of what film can be and how it is made.
*After… After… Access (Jordan Lorde, USA 2018, 16 min) OV (EN, SDH, integrated AD)
*[sound of subtitles] (Seo Hye Lee, UK 2021, 2 min) OV (EN, SDH, no sound)
*Portland Forecast (Seo Hye Lee, UK 2023, 11 min) OV (EN, SDH, integrated AD)
*Alien (Sybille Bauer-Zierfuss with Elsa Scheel, Helena Paflik, AT 2024, 22 min) OV (GER, SDH)
Followed by a conversation with Sibylle Bauer-Zierfuss (in German, ÖGS) Jordan Lorde (by Zoom, English, ÖGS) Moderation: Clara Trischler
>> PROGRAM 3
4 to 6 pm
INCLUSION II: AESTHETICS OF ACCESS – Creative Activisms
How does accessibility itself become artistic material? What happens when access is not only considered but reinvented? The third program continues and deepens the questions of inclusive film practice: here it's no longer just about disabled artists shaping production processes, but about how they fundamentally question, subvert, and replace existing systems of access with creative, self-determined alternatives.
*Mobility Device (Carmen Papalia | Directors/Production: Eric Sanderson & Claudia Goodine, CA 2016, 9 min) OV (EN)
*Notes from the Underlands (RA Walden, DE 2019, 11 min) OV (EN, SDH, integrated AD)
*Am Haupteingang (Besuch am Schillerplatz) (Philipp Muerling, AT 2022/2023, 20 min) OV (EN, SDH)
*[Closer Captions] (Christine Sun Kim, DE 2020, 8 min) OV (EN, SDH)
>> PANEL 1
ACTIVISMS TO ACTIVATIONS
The panel ACTIVISMS TO ACTIVATIONS focuses on initiatives, independent advocacy groups, associations, and actions by individuals who, through lived experience, draw attention to the living conditions of people with disabilities. In the discussion, representatives, activists, and artists talk about the necessity of actions, communities, and networks to dismantle barriers and promote equality, self-determined living, and cultural participation. The conversation also addresses the work behind these initiatives and the assessment of the current social situation for people with disabilities from the perspective of their representatives.
Participants include Julia Moser from the association FmB – Interessensvertretung Frauen* mit Behinderungen (Women* with Disabilities) — the first independent advocacy group for women* with disabilities in Austria; Ema Benčíková and Mikki Muhr talk about the OFFENE redAKTION. During the course of the project, spaces for meeting and negotiation are created for people with disabilities, with chronic illnesses, and without disabilities. The OFFENE redAKTION is an ongoing collective process, developed as a continuation of Eva Egermann’s Crip Magazine.
In addition, In addition, Jannik Franzen from the working group Barriereabbau und Gender Diversity (Inclusive practices and gender diversity) of the association dieRegisseur*innen talks about the activities of the working group. The panel is complemented by visual artist Philipp Muerling, whose film Am Haupteingang (Besuch am Schillerplatz) is screened as part of the festival. The actions documented in the film bring the discussion on equality and accessibility for students with disabilities at the Academy of Fine Arts into broader public awareness.
Moderation: Bernd Oppl
with Ema Benčíková und Mikki Muhr (OFFENE redAKTION offspring of the Crip Magazine) Jannik Franzen (AG Barriereabbau und Genderdiversität | dieRegisseur*innen) Julia Moser (Verein Frauen* mit Behinderungen) Philipp Muerling (in German, ÖGS)
>> PROGRAM 4
6.30 to 9 pm
BEZIEHUNGSWEISE(N) I – Relating Otherwise
How do intimate relationships develop beyond normative ideas? What forms of love, desire, partnership, and self-realization become possible when disabled people define their relationships themselves? The fourth program places intimacy, sexuality, and self-determination at the center—not as problem areas but as sites of freedom and creative redesign.
The title "Beziehungsweise(n)" deliberately plays with double meanings: it's about relationships and about the ways in which people relate to each other. It's about "beziehungsweise" (respectively) as a connecting conjunction and about the diverse ways of relating. The two films show people who refuse to shape their lives according to others' expectations—people who confidently go their own ways, develop their own relationship forms, and thereby shift the boundaries of what society considers "normal" or “possible.”
*Sex Assistant (Andrés González Majul, VE 2019, 21 min) OV (GER)
Followed by a conversation with Andrés González Majul (by Zoom, English, ÖGS) Moderation: Anabel Rodriguez-Rios
*Lass mich fliegen (Evelyne Faye, AT 2022, 80 min) OV (GER, SDH, integrated AD)
Followed by a conversation with
Evelyne Faye and actors/performers
Moderation: Anna Holl
(in German, ÖGS)
Sunday, December 7, 2025
>> PROGRAM 5
11 am to 1 pm
BEZIEHUNGSWEISEN II – Modes of… Unmasking, Thriving, Dissociating, Laughing, Appearing
What does it mean to be yourself when the world demands you be someone else? How do people navigate through spaces not made for them—through neurotypical norms, capitalist structures, visual codes, familial expectations? The fifth program continues the examination of intimate relationships from Program 4 but broadens the view to relationships with the self: to strategies of self-preservation, self-assertion, self-invention.
The title "BEZIEHUNGSWEISE(N)" refers to the diverse modes in which people with invisible, cognitive, or psychological disabilities shape their existence—modes often misunderstood as adaptive achievements but which are in truth creative survival strategies, forms of self-assertion, and acts of resistance. Imposing, Unmasking, Thriving, Dissociating, Laughing—these five terms in the subtitle name not deficits but practices through which people move through a world that does not provide for their ways of existing.
*Imposter (Michelle Lyons, Joe Wilkie, AU 2024, 6 min) OV (EN)
*Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie (Nicole Bazuin, CA 2023, 10 min) OV (EN)
*Take Me Home (Liz Sargent, USA 2023, 16 min) OV (EN)
*I Can’t See You Laughing (Bernd Oppl, AT 2024, 3 min)
Followed by a conversation with Bernd Oppl (conversation in German, ÖGS) Moderation: Constanze Ruhm
>> PROGRAM 6
2 to 5 pm
IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? Structures of Exclusion, Solidarity Beyond the Norm
Ella Glendining was born with an extremely rare disability: she has no hip joints and very short femurs. So rare that she has never seen anyone with a body like hers. This experience of radical uniqueness leads to an existential question: Is there anybody out there like me? Is There Anybody Out There? documents Ella's four-year global search for people with similar bodies. The film becomes an investigation of what it means to radically love oneself as a disabled person in a non-disabled world, and a love letter to the Disability Community.
*Is There Anybody Out There? (Ella Glendining, UK 2023, 87 min)
Followed by a conversation with Ella Glendining (Zoom conversation in English, ÖGS) Moderation: Alejandro Bachmann
>> PANEL 2
Living in an Ableist World is Brutal… Expectations of Ability
Ableism refers to a complex system of discrimination that devalues, excludes, and disadvantages people with disabilities. Architectural, institutional, structural, and linguistic forms of ableism create barriers for those who do not conform to prevailing hierarchies of ability or who fall outside dominant notions of “norm.” The term “ableism,” derived from the English word able, describes this system of classification and evaluation of abilities and the related forms of discrimination experienced by individuals or groups who do not meet ability expectations.
For people with disabilities, ableism—and the exclusions, devaluations, and marginalizations it produces—are part of everyday experience. The study of ableism is an important field within Disability Studies, critically engaging with the hierarchies and constructions of ability that societies produce, as well as with the complex structures of internalized discrimination.
As part of the festival Feminist Perspectives of Disability, artists and filmmakers address specific experiences of ableism, expressing them through situated perspectives. They challenge expectations of ability, foster shifts in perspective, outline inclusive approaches, and formulate institutional critiques.
In this panel, Alejandro Bachmann, Eva Egermann, and Michaela Joch discuss ableism in the cultural sector, the media and cinematic representation of disability, and the expectations of ability along with the resulting barriers and exclusions within universities and academic practice.
Alejandro Bachmann is a cultural worker specializing in film education, writing about film, and curating film programs focused on documentary and experimental forms. From 2010 to 2019, he was a research associate and later head of the Department of Education, Research, and Publications at the Austrian Film Museum. Since 2023, he has been Professor of Film History and Film Theory at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, where, together with Katja Lell, he develops the project All Disabled Selves, a research group examining the interrelation of ableism and cinema on theoretical, structural, and institutional levels.
Eva Egermann is an artist based in Vienna. Her artistic and textual practice engages with activist movements and subcultures across different eras, reworking categories and political conditions of ability/weakness and non-conforming bodies. In 2012, she founded the magazine project Crip Magazine. She presents her work internationally in exhibitions and festivals and has contributed to conferences through her artistic research. Together with filmmaker Cordula Thym, Egermann produced the docu-fictional TV show C-TV (Wenn ich Dir sage, ich habe Dich gern…), which humorously and critically envisions a utopia of an inclusive film and media world. In 2023, they received the Diagonale Award for Innovative Cinema for this work.
Michaela Joch works at the University of Vienna in the field of inclusive pedagogy and has been active as a freelance trainer and lecturer since 2017 (including for myAbility). In her PhD at WU Vienna, she examined the accessibility of Austrian universities and developed perspectives on inclusive work, education, and social structures. She is a member of the Monitoring Committee for the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and co-founder of the *Competence Team Women with Disabilities (ÖBR)**. Her experiences also inform her artistic practice, in which she explores disability, empowerment, and social transformation.
Moderation: Constanze Ruhm
with Alejandro Bachmann, Eva Egermann , Michaela Joch (in German, ÖGS)
>> PROGRAM 7
5.30 to 8 pm
[RISING SOUND OF WIND RUSHING] – Deaf Gain as Reorientation of the Senses
Between 2011 and 2013, a series of tubas were stolen from several high schools in Los Angeles. The Tuba Thieves, however, tells no story about thieves or missing instruments. Instead, the film asks: What does it mean to hear? What happens when the deepest voice of a marching band falls silent? How does absence sound?
The feature debut of d/Deaf filmmaker and artist Alison O'Daniel takes the tuba thefts as a starting point for a radically experimental engagement with sound, music, and language—and with the insight that hearing is not necessarily an auditory experience. O'Daniel combines documentary, narrative, and essayistic forms, weaves reenactments of historical concerts with fictionalized portraits of real people, and creates a cinematic portrait of Los Angeles that has never been seen—or heard—like this before.
*The Tuba Thieves (Alison O’Daniel, USA 2023, 91 min) OV (EN, SDH)
Followed by a conversation with Alison O’Daniel (Zoom conversation in English, ÖGS) Moderation: Constanze Ruhm