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Managing manipulation: tools and challenges in creative collaborations with intellectually-disabled people

There has long been an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality when it comes to the production of disability narratives on screen, driven by an assumption that non-disabled people cannot accurately interpret the disabled experience. Given the appalling history of representations by non-disabled filmmakers, it is easy to understand why many academics and members of the disability community favour the complete control of disability content by disabled people. But this approach has failed the many compelling ‘disabled voices’ that go unheard because they do not reach audiences. The most practical solution is to forge new models of creative collaboration between disabled and non-disabled people, something I attempted to do with my PhD film, a comedy feature entitled Down Under Mystery Tour. I discovered that the most important tool in such collaborations is the utilisation and management of manipulation, one that prioritises skill and experience and best expresses the unique perspective of intellectually-disabled collaborators.