“I would like to be like[the character] Chloe[played by April Rose] because I like her character and the clothes she wears.”
Ms Graham will get her first real crack at making her screen dreams a reality as a participant in the debut year of a film school in Melbourne specifically for people living with an intellectual disability.
Not-for-profit film school and production company Bus Stop Films last week officially launched a school in Melbourne in partnership with RMIT University for the 2022 academic year.
Ms Graham,who lives with Down Syndrome,will learn everything about filmmaking from script-writing,camera work,auditioning talent,set design,costuming and post-production as well as be mentored by industry leaders. At the end of the year-long course,everyone in the class will have made a short film.
While recent reality TV show successes such asEmployable Me andLove on the Spectrum have increased the visibility of Australians with a disability,Bus Stop Films CEO Tracey Corban-Matchett says the philosophy of her film school is that true diversity is when people with a disability are makers of TV and film –not just the subject – and the focus isn’t solely on their disability.
“We know whoever’s behind the camera really informs who we see on screen,” says Ms Corban-Matchett.