About this Short Film
The Underlooked, by Moses Kizza (Uganda, 2026), centres the voices of people with disability as they confront everyday ableism and exclusion. Through candid testimony about demeaning language, limited social interaction, and assumptions about wheelchairs, crutches and prostheses, the film challenges perceptions that frame people as incapable or attention-seeking. Its tone is urgent and unflinching yet rooted in dignity, inviting audiences to recognise barriers to mobility, participation and respect. Likely to resonate with young adult and adult viewers, advocates and community leaders, The Underlooked prompts reflection and practical conversations about access, language and rights — a thoughtful, necessary contribution to the Focus on Ability International Short Film Festival programme.
Film Details
Film Transcript
People are ignorant about disability. What people think about persons with disability, especially those who are using wheelchairs, crutches, artificial limbs, is that most of them think these people are incapable or attention seekers. They have a mentality that those people are always begging for money, and others think they are vulnerable, they can't do anything, they are fragile, which is not true.
Children in our community are not aware of disability because most people, or most parents with children with disability, are not giving children with disability an opportunity to interact with other children. Even the language we are using in our communities is demeaning, whereby you find someone who, in the local language, is called someone who's incapable of doing anything. A person is called — you know — we have demeaning language being said in our community. They nickname, they don't help people with disabilities.
I wish the whole world would know that people with disabilities are not attention seekers, are not beggars. I wish to see a community whereby people with disability feel free to express themselves and they have a right to be treated well. They have rights to move out and go everywhere. Disability is not inability.
Filmmaker
Moses Kizza is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Moses Kizza.
