Cinema and disability: a look to understand

The Faculty of Health Sciences once again organizes one of its most famous events, linking the different realities of disability with audiovisual products.

Nora Fernandez Fernandez

Today, Friday, October 21, the XI Conference on Cinema and Disability is being held, organized by the Department of Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine of the Faculty of Health Sciences. The event will take place in the Assembly Hall of the Management Building on the Alcorcón campus and its format will be entirely face-to-face.

The event begins at 09:00 and will be made up of several round tables, colloquiums and presentations that will address specific issues relating cinema and disability. Those in charge of developing the conferences will be invited experts from the area of health and the audiovisual sector. The complete program can be consulted at the following link: XI Conference on Cinema and Disability.

This meeting, organized by the FCS, is one of the consecrated activities within the faculty. As explained by the director of the Conference, Susana Collado Vázquez, professor of Physiotherapy at the URJC, "throughout the editions, members from different fields of health, film directors, actors, people with disabilities and their relatives…”. "Since 2013, when the conference began, we have not only talked about cinema, but also about other artistic disciplines such as literature, painting or theater," she adds. However, in this XI Conference, "we have chosen the cinema because we think that it arouses many emotions and reaches a wider audience, and then we can understand better and in a deeper way the realities that people with disabilities live", says Collado.

The objective of these conferences, according to Collado, "is to present and bring disability closer to the entire university and to all interested persons, not only those related to health sciences, but also to a general public, since all we are involved and related in one way or another to disability”. Thus, cinema is a good tool "to approach this reality in a pleasant and universal way," explains Collado.

On this occasion, the main topics that will be addressed are memory disorders, various aspects of body movement and the physical and mental consequences of people who were in concentration camps. All this analyzed through the lens of cinema.