SUPERFEST 2025 FILM SELECTIONS
Superfest 2025 will occur online Thursday, October 16th through Sunday October 19th with in-person screenings Thursday October 16th, Saturday October 18th, and Sunday October 19th at the San Francisco Disability Cultural Center. Stay tuned for more information, and for now, read below to check out the blurbs for our 2025 films and save the date!
We have also put together a list of possible Content Warnings / Trigger Warnings for this year’s films if it would be useful for you. We cannot claim to have covered everything that someone might need, but we tried to be as thorough as we could. As always, take care of yourself while watching these films.
Dr. Mona Minkara has full scuba gear on with goggles over her face. She stands next to her Filipino scuba instructor Arnel. The background is the ocean and a blue sky.
Access the Unknown
USA, 2024 (Documentary Short, 16 min)
Director: Mona Minkara & Benjamin Jimenez | Producer: Mona Minkara
Just because it’s challenging doesn’t mean blind people should be excluded from the beauty of the ocean. In this documentary short, Dr. Mona Minkara, a blind traveler and adventurer, takes on the challenge of scuba diving, proving that with adaptation, trust, and a willingness to access the unknown, the beauty of the world can be experienced in more ways than one.
A man with tan skin, black hair combed up, glasses, and gray shirt looks over at someone. He also has headphones with a mic around his neck and is in a cubicle office environment.
Audio Description
*Innovation in Craft Award*
USA, 2024 (Comedic Short, 5 min)
Director: Luke J. Salewski | Producer: Lee Pugsley
After making a wish on his birthday, a lonely visually impaired man finds his world turned upside down by an unexpected encounter.
Two hands that are brown have their fingers gently intwined, but not fully grasping each other. One hand has rings on.
Contours
USA, 2024 (Dramatic Short, 12 min)
Director: Aisha Amin | Producer: Brian Cohen
Upon using a modern art museum as the setting for a role play game that goes hopelessly awry, a deaf couple desperate to rekindle their spark finds the reconnection they seek in their shared experience over an abstract sculpture.
The image is of the back of a woman in a wheelchair who wears a floral red blouse. She faces a large yellow building with statues at the entrance.
Disposable Humanity
USA, 2024 (Documentary Feature, 1 hour 35 min)
Director: Cameron S. Mitchell | Producer: Cameron S. Mitchell & David T. Mitchell
A family’s investigation into the history and memory of the Nazi Aktion T4 program which targeted over 300,000 disabled people and catalyzed the Holocaust.
Argentinian men with dwarfism all have dark gray uniforms on. Their limbs are blurred as they are clearly running on a sidewalk, with trees in the background.
El Mundialito (Small World Cup)
*Superfest Director Selection*
Argentina, 2024 (Documentary Feature, 1 hour 16 min)
Director: Marcel Czombos | Producer: Lara Decuzzi
Achondroplasia is a bone growth disorder that causes the most common type of dwarfism. Facundo (Argentina), Julio (Paraguay), Vinicius (Brazil) and Fabián (Peru) are the captains of the “short” soccer teams of their countries. We see them battle ableism and compete for the prestigious Mundialito Cup.
The poster for the film ‘Equal World?’ with the text “Not a question. A right.” Two young women in wheelchairs are in the center of a large paved area with a domed Pakistani gazebo in the background and lush green trees.
Equal World
*Best of Festival - Documentary*
United Kingdom, 2024 (Documentary Short, 23 min)
Director: Tom Jenkinson | Producer: Dela Anderson
‘Equal World?’ - Not a question. A right.
The film follows disability advocate Abia Akram as she platforms the voices of three young people with disabilities: Tapiwa, Taqwa and Basiru. It shows their daily lives and talks to what is needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and an inclusive society. These intimate portraits of young campaigners allow the audience invaluable insight into why youths with disabilities are essential partners in getting the SDGs back on track.
A black and white image of a young woman in a wheelchair with her hair pulled back in a curly ponytail in a sleeveless black dress. She sits at a restaurant table looking at the young man opposite her with a loose T-Shirt. There are flowers on the table and the background is blinds.
Kisses
*Innovation in Craft Award*
United Kingdom, 2025 (Dramatic Short, 8 min)
Director: Ziwei Li | Producer: Qing Li
Mia, a young woman who uses a wheelchair and lives with her conservative father, is curious about love. When James, a young man with secrets, unexpectedly enters her life, she embarks on a bold journey of intimacy and self-discovery. However, an unexpected twist forces them to confront everything they thought they knew about themselves and each other.
Three people sit in an accessible van with the grates of a folded ramp behind them. The driver is a woman with a sweater and a zebra steering wheel. In the passenger seat is a bored teenager with glasses and a blue hoodie. Behind them is a kid in a wheelchair.
Les Monstres (Little Monsters)
*Best of Festival - Fiction*
France, 2024 (Comedic Short, 14 min)
Director: Pablo Leridon | Producer: Eliott Khayat
Today, visually impaired teenager Erwan can't wait to get to school to declare his love for Agathe. Unfortunately, he first has to share a medical transport van with David, a wheelchair-bound suck-up, who tries everyday to make friends with Erwan, quite unsuccesfully. When David tries to make sure they never arrive, war is declared.
An Iranian man with a gray beard and hair sits crouched in a field of grass. He has a black sweater on with the sleeves rolled up and brown pants. He sits in front of a small basin of water, staring at it.
Remember
Islamic Republic of Iran, 2025 (Dramatic Short, 10 min)
Director/Producer: Javad Ganji
An atmospheric glimpse into a man with Alzheimer’s who lives in a rural area, and seeks to find someone to help him remember his prayers.
Artwork of Brad Lomax, a Black man in a wheelchair, holding a microphone to make a speech. The streets of Oakland, CA are in the background.
Renegades: Untold Stories of Black Americans
*Disability Justice Award*
USA, 2024 (Digital Documentary Series, 10-15 min episodes)
Directors: Cashmere Jasmine, Marsha Hallager, Markus Essien Producers: Marsha Hallager, Tameka Citchen-Spruce, Markus Essien
RENEGADES is a new digital series of documentary shorts showcasing the lives and cultural contributions of little-known historical figures with disabilities. Hosted by award-winning musician and disability rights champion Lachi, and made by a team of D/deaf and disabled filmmakers, the project is designed to increase public knowledge of disability history, and encourage cross-cultural understanding between non-disabled people and those with disabilities – who make up more than 1 in 4 adults in America today.
A tilted camera angle depicting a house and palm trees being swept up by the blue ocean. The title ‘Rising Tides and Raising Voices’ is in the middle.
Rising Tides, Raising Voices
*Advocacy Award*
Samoa, 2024 (Documentary Short, 15 min)
Director: Jody Kristina Santos | Producer: Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo
The Pacific region is among the most impacted in the world by climate change. As part of a legacy of systemic oppression, Indigenous Pacific Islanders with disabilities are particularly at risk. Because they are less likely to be formally employed, their livelihoods depend on fishing and farming – which have been significantly affected by climate change. During disasters, the structural barriers that Pacific Islanders with disabilities face every day – like the lack of accessible information and transportation – can become a death sentence. Faced with the urgency of increasing disasters, disabled grassroots activists across the Pacific are championing disability-inclusive climate action. It’s a fight not just against nature, but against a world that often overlooks people with disabilities. Rising Tides, Raising Voices is a call for intersectional, inclusive, community-led solutions to the encroaching global crisis.
A woman with a beige beret, sweater, and coat looks worriedly at a piece of paper that she holds. Behind her are the walls of a home.
The Letter
*Jury’s Choice Award*
United Kingdom, 2024 (Dramatic Short, 28 min)
Director: Samuel Dore | Producer: Justin Edgar
As the Nazi’s rise to power in pre WW2 Germany, a young German man named Johan decides to marry his sweetheart Ingrid. Johan’s father Karl is a member of the Nazi party and Johan fears that his father will not allow them to be married because he doesn’t want Johan to marry a Deaf girl, so keeps this a secret from him. The persecution of the Deaf community escalates and Lina’s father runs a Deaf club which becomes a target to be brought under Nazi control. When Karl finds out about their romance, Johan is forced to make a choice between his father’s will and his heart.
A darkly lit scene of a Passover Seder. There is a large table with a beige table cloth and plates of food. Noa, a young adult, wears a red sweater and sits next to her father. Noa looks up at her Grandma who has a hand on her shoulder, wearing a blue sweater. Three other people at the right of the frame look over at Noa.
Unholy
USA, 2024 (Dramatic Short, 13 min)
Director: Daisy Friedman | Producers: Arielle Friedman & Isaak Popkin
Unholy follows Noa, a young adult with a complex gastrointestinal disorder, as she attends her family's Passover Seder for the first time since being put on a feeding tube. There, she is confronted by pushy family members, malfunctioning medical devices, and a room full of food she cannot eat.
Against a black background there are two faces lying flat, the crowns of their heads touching. The face on the left is Ananias, a Mexican man who stares solemnly up. The face on the right is a mask with white hair, red lips, and two teeth.
Viejito/Enfermito/Grito (Old Man/Sick Man/Shout)
USA, 2023 (Experimental Short, 10 min)
Director/Producer: Dolissa Medina
Ananias, an SF Bay Area artist and immigrant, performs the folkloric Danza de los Viejitos (the Dance of the Old Men). Originally from Michoacán, Mexico, where the dance originates, Ananias interprets its movements through the lens of his spirituality, his long-term HIV-related disabilities, and his search for a place in the world.
A black slide with the title ‘Voice notes from Palestine.” Underneath are the words in Arabic.
Voice Notes From Palestine
*Disability Justice Award*
United Kingdom, 2024 (Documentary Short, 10 min)
Director: Amal Al-Groobi | Producer: Dr. Iain Overton, Dr. Nazmi Al-Masri, Dr. Itab Shuayb
Voice Notes from Palestine, a short film by filmmaker Amal Al-Agroobi and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), features the testimonies of several Palestinian students with disabilities from the Islamic University of Gaza. The students recount their experiences in occupied Gaza under siege and bombardment by the Israeli military.
The students had taken part in an online-course in 2023 run by Dr Iain Overton, Director of AOAV. The course aimed to teach story-telling techniques via social media.
Aya Kafafi, who took part in the course, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in July 2024, along with her father, sister, and several of her nieces and nephews.
A Mexican woman wears a yellow sweater and is in the middle of signing, with her hands up to her chest. She stares off to the side at someone next to her off camera. Behind her is a white wall, and in front of her is a table with a red solo cup and a phone.
Words To Live By
USA, 2025 (Documentary Short, 14 min)
Director/Producer: Richard E. Haywood | Producer: Jennifer Gonzalez
A sign language interpreter tries to heal from childhood trauma through expanding idiomatic expression and minority representation in the deaf community.