Is There Anybody Out There? coming soon

Award Winning films from Cornwall Film Festival

Is There Anybody Out There? | Dir Ella Glendining | 2023 | 1h 27m | United Kingdom | Documentary | English | 12A

A Sundance and Sheffield DocFest favourite, director Ella Glendining - born with a condition so rare that there's scarcely any information available about it - showcases her search for people with similar bodies to hers.  

In her documentary, Glendining weaves a beautiful portrait of how various people go about loving the different bodies that they're in. Glendining overcomes many challenges during the course of the film, as well as pleasant surprises - all the while maintaining an infectious degree of enthusiasm and curiosity. Is There Anybody Out There? is a great challenge to our society's pervasive ableist assumptions, a powerful rejection of the norms that serve to actively harm disabled individuals, as opposed to uplift and support them.  

'The filmmaker’s enthusiasm and indomitable spirit make this a deeply affecting and intimate doc that takes the viewer on a literal and emotional journey towards self-acceptance. With Is There Anybody Out There?, Glendining has fashioned a brilliantly subtle but complex expression of herself that confronts assumptions around ableism. In her world, there is nothing to be fixed but plenty to be celebrated' - That Shelf.  

'Like 2020 Sundance breakout Crip Camp, Glendining’s film is a well-argued and moving reminder that we still live in a world where too many see disability as something that needs to be ‘fixed’ rather than more willingly accommodated' - Screen Daily.