The UK filmmaker Alex Widdowson crafts short animations that explore psychology, personality and neurodiversity. In Drawing on Autism, Widdowson considers the complex ethics of his work. Speaking with the Autistic man at the centre of his latest animated project, Widdowson wonders if he can ever animate him in a way that doesn’t reduce him to a caricature or otherwise misrepresent him. Is he being careful to the point of paranoia? Or does, perhaps, his exacting internal vigilance ultimately improve his work? As their conversation unfolds, Widdowson pivots between animation styles as if to comment on his own uncertainty. From this self-referential structure, an intricate, revealing and often funny portrait of the two men at its centre arises. Through his construction, Widdowson also crafts a thoughtful meditation on broader, and often controversial, questions of representation in entertainment and the arts.
Director: Alex Widdowson
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Nature and landscape
Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece
6 minutes
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Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
14 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes
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Art
Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form
14 minutes
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Gender
When aggression is viewed as brilliance, it hurts women in science, and science itself
5 minutes
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Religion
From God’s shoes to satellites in heaven – children weigh in on religion
8 minutes
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Stories and literature
Myths from Earth’s edge – what the Icelandic sagas reveal about Norse morality
57 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why we should worry less about ‘sentient’ AIs and more about what we’re teaching them
16 minutes