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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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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
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Ageing and death
We’re not the only animals that appear to grieve. What are the implications?
6 minutes
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War and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
9 minutes
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Cities
A lush, whirlwind tribute to the diversity of life in a northern English county
3 minutes
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The ancient world
An ancient Roman’s hilarious (and perhaps relatable) response to a social snub
2 minutes
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Values and beliefs
A Zen Buddhist priest voices the deep matters he usually ponders in silence
5 minutes