About this Short Film
No description available for this film.
Film Details
Country:
Australia
State:
Queensland
Category:
Open Entrant Documentaries
Genre:
Personal Story
Festival Year:
2026
Filmmaker:
Jacob Viel
Film Transcript
Once the doctor said to me that, he put it in a percentage like he's 99% sure that I have stars disease. It's a really rare juvenile form of macular degeneration. My eyesight condition doesn't affect my peripherals. My central vision is what's really affected.
There also is a stereotype in the media about your common person who's blind with a cane, with a guide dog, with thick glasses. Well, I'm a blind person and I don't have those things. I want to embrace the idea of people with different abilities and this is kind of how I live my best blind life.
About five years ago I had a big change in my life. I was with my partner for 16 years and I realised that our relationship was ending. As someone with a disability, you sometimes rely on your partner to help you do certain things. Losing that person meant you kind of lose so much of yourself and I went deep into depression and deep into anxiety. I had to reassess my life.
There's huge stigma for people with disabilities when applying for jobs — this huge unfairness, judgment, no one giving anyone a go, a try. And it's been the hardest thing in my life. I think I just got to a point where I was confident with brewing and I just wanted that chance, you know? I guess it's kind of like I want to be part of their club and they won't let me. I guess I made my own club. I'll brew my own beer, create my own brand, create my own brewery. Now that I have my own brewery, I can adapt it so that it works best for me. My whole life has been assessing products, locations, how that could be better. It's those adaptions I've put into the brewery, but also into the brand.
The awesome thing about beer is that it involves sitting down and drinking. It's a very slow process. It's sitting down with a mate and drinking. It's chatting. It's talking. It's telling stories. Beer is a great catalyst for a good story. I'm using beer to tell my story and that's really giving me confidence and making me feel like, you know, I have purpose in this world and there's something going on here with beer and me and it allows me to make connection and that has got to be the most important thing in life. But for me, beer being a catalyst for change is something that I'm seeing right now. I'm using beer as a catalyst to make change, to allow people to embrace people of different abilities.
Well, with persistence, with time, with support, with friends, I've made a dream come true. They looked at me and saw what I couldn't do. I looked at myself and saw what I could do.
Filmmaker
Jacob Viel is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Jacob Viel.
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