“This Film Is Not Just for Disabled People, It Is for Anyone Who’s Ever Felt ‘Other'”: Ella Glendining on Is There Anybody Out There?

While many non-white, non-straight folks have long lamented underrepresentation in cinema, Ella Glendining has literally never seen anyone that looks like her on-screen — or off-screen, for that matter. (Yes, other similarly bodied people are indeed out there; along with fixit freaks like a Miami-based doctor who seems to have cornered the market on “limb lengthening.”) But this truth culminates in the biggest revelation of Is There Anybody Out There?, Glendining’s personal and illuminating non-fiction film: There truly is nobody out there quite like her, nor is there anybody out there quite like you or me. Filmmaker reached out to the acclaimed writer-director — named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow 2020 (and who seems right on track to fulfill that prediction) — just prior to her film’s World Cinema Documentary Competition debut on January 22 at the Sundance Film Festival.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.