Superfest Film Festival Challenges Media Perceptions of People with Disabilities

GOLDEN GATE XPRESS -- SF State’s Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability helped produce the festival and has been involved with it for the past four years. The institute offers an opportunity for students with disabilities to serve as jurors for the festival as part of a paid internship. For this year’s festival, the students’ job was to sort through the 119 film submissions they received. Emily Beitiks, the assistant director of the Longmore Institute and Superfest coordinator, thinks the internship and involvement with the festival offers a great opportunity for students. “They get to learn about disability representation and see images that look like them which is so rare to see and experience in film,” she said. “It’s an important opportunity for them to get to experience the vibrancy of the disability community that fleshes out what you’re not going to get in a textbook.” This positive portrayal was what grad student and Superfest juror Alex Locust looked for in each film.