About this Short Film
Meeting Mick, by Susie Forster (Australia, 2018) follows Tim, who describes living with C5–6 incomplete quadriplegia — he walks and drives with his left foot — and his encounter with Nick and a disability performance company. The film adopts an intimate, reflective tone, mixing everyday detail — workshops, mosaics, sculpting, the physicality of dance and partnered movement — with personal voice to show how creativity, relationships and performance reshape identity and agency. Rather than reducing people to diagnosis, it centres Tim's perspective on learning to integrate disability into life and to embrace art-making as practice. Audiences interested in dance, disability arts and personal documentary will find a thoughtful, respectful portrait suited to the Focus on Ability festival.
Film Details
Film Transcript
My name is Tim. I have incomplete quadriplegia — I'm technically a C5-6 incomplete quad — but I walk; I drive with my left foot. I broke my neck in a horrible way while overseas on a student exchange program. I spent most of 1998 in hospitals, and then I met Nick on a dance floor. He kind of changed my life just a little bit.
[Music]
He's teaching me, and I'm learning to allow room for disability to be a part of my life and not try to run from it and deny it, but also don't completely indulge in it.
I developed this different body which I didn't like. It twists — it's mostly the scoliosis — because what it did to me when it made me walk made me look... I couldn't feel half my body. I couldn't feel it breaking down; there's no pain.
So what does that leave you with now?
My right torso and right shoulder have limited movement. Yeah, a bit. Slowly, gradually, I've got some movement now.
Where did you start dancing?
I saw this dance company. I was working on crutches, one crutch, and I left in tears watching. At the time I was having trouble moving from walking sticks; I wasn't accepting where my body was going, and the next step I thought would be a wheelchair. These people were moving in wheelchairs incredibly, so I thought, I want to do that. I thought I could dance and perform with a disability performance group and film company. Chaos — I got right into it. I really enjoyed it. They expressed anger, sexuality, things that people with disabilities aren't always seen as capable of having.
A strong memory I have of him is him and this guy Heath — it was like they were doing a pair where they locked arms and he started swinging him and rolling him around, and it became more and more vigorous until he lifted him out of the chair.
[Music]
The first time I saw him with the company, it gave me a whole new level of— it was just a better chance. The dance that he did was a wonderful way to show his physical capabilities, and as he's aged I think his art and his sculpture is now his avenue to self-express. He's got a full workshop out the back; he's tinkering with things. He's making a mosaic over there, he's got a painting here, he's got a sculpture over there. It's a way of living that says we can live and create. I always find that invigorating.
[Music]
My ability to move, I show passion. Anybody with or without disability experiences a moment, and this one is also part of it. The way he's created his life is a living example of how you bring art into kind of everything you do.
[Music]
Filmmaker
Susie Forster is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Susie Forster.
Lovely film Susie
Brilliant and inspiring film so well made Susie
These guys are so with us and for us. How clever are they and Susie. Thanks.
Uplifting and beautiful.
A terrific encouragement to us all ... disabled and able alike.
Thanks Alison
What a great story of discovery movement frustration joy and art. Thanks.