What is it like to be born into a world that seems like it wasn’t quite made for you – to feel, perhaps, as if you’re tuned to a slightly different frequency than everyone else? Produced for the UK’s Channel 4 in 1991, director Tim Webb’s award-winning short A Is for Autism immerses viewers in the minds and drawings of several autistic people as they discuss their interests, dislikes, sensory experiences and the challenges of being different. The collaborative project includes a free-flowing animation based on the sketches of several autistic children alongside the perspectives of autistic people of varying ages, including the US animal behaviouralist and autism rights advocate Temple Grandin. Using sound, music and live action alongside the charming animations to evoke the sensory experiences of its narrators, the film draws out the similarities in their lived experience, as well as the vast diversity among individual autistic people. Created before the major strides in autism awareness and research of the past few decades, Webb’s film was widely celebrated at the time of its release for its original aesthetic as well as for centring its autistic contributors.
Director: Tim Webb
Producer: Dick Arnall
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Love and friendship
What does it mean to say goodbye to a creature that doesn’t know you’re leaving?
13 minutes
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Life stages
Grief, healing and laughter coexist at a unique retreat for widows and widowers
15 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
What do screens depicting serene natural scenes mean to those living in lock-up?
12 minutes
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Family life
A mother and child bond in an unusual prison visitation space in this poignant portrait
11 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality
7 minutes
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War and peace
A frontline soldier’s moving account of the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ of 1914
12 minutes
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Technology and the self
A haunting scene from ‘Minority Report’ inspires a voyage into time and memory
7 minutes
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Family life
The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal
5 minutes