voting pool It’s unlike any other film you’ll see on the festival circuit this year. The experimental film, made by a group of British filmmakers, is described as “a hybrid film that showcases the autistic perspective and possibilities of perceiving the world” and features a “drift form built around the concept of the autistic camera”.
As the synopsis explains: “The camera’s curiosity finds a range of subjects wandering in the world, revealing environments that are often not conducive to the autistic experience, such as busy workplaces and crowded bars, as well as the They provide a quiet space to breathe.
Characters we meet along the way include a B-movie club host, a young woman filling out a questionnaire and watching footage from an eye-tracking test, an office worker hiding her autism in her life, and a mysterious Dogs – humanistic spirits guarding disabled people, whose stories are told in picture books.
“Like a Russian doll where is wally? (or Where is Waldo? “Set in the United States, the film invites viewers to explore the details of every part of the frame,” the synopsis states. “Each character exists in a separate world…but gradually we begin to realize that they share a common experience. Some hide their autism and deal with the resulting isolation, while others thrive in the community around them. and thrive within a supportive structure, however, all share a common goal: to find a place where they can move freely, free from testing and stimulation.
Regulate the limits of society. This secret location is the stimulation pool…”.
“Stimulation” or self-stimulating behaviors are repetitive behaviors or actions that people use to help regulate their emotions or cope with their feelings.
The film’s cast includes autistic actors and non-actors, including schizophrenic performance artist Dre Spisto. Members of the Neuroculture Collective also showed up, mostly discussing creative decisions behind the scenes. voting pool Shot with Super 16mm After sun exposure Cinematographer Greg Oke.
The film had its world premiere at CPH:DOX 2024 in Copenhagen and was recently screened at the BFI London Film Festival. Just last week it became one of 13 feature films on the longlist for this year’s Raindance Maverick Award at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). The honor is given to “creative, financially conscious and risk-taking filmmakers.”
British production and distribution company Dartmouth Films plans to release it in theaters in spring 2025.
co-creator behind voting pool is a neurocultural collective made up of Sam Jon-Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles and Lucy Walker, who work with artist and filmmaker The project is co-produced by Steven Eastwood, who serves as co-director and co-producer, and producer Chloe White of Whalebone Films.
The project began with funding from health charity the Wellcome Trust for Autism Through Cinema, a research project at Queen Mary University of London that examines “how cinema creates depictions of autism and influences our understanding of neurodiversity”. The research program is organized around two core activities: Film Archeology, led by Professor Janet Hubbard, and Film Practice, led by Eastwood, a filmmaker and Professor of Film Practice. As part of the grant, Eastwood held a series of workshops that laid the foundation for the collective, which was launched in late 2020. voting pooland a multi-screen gallery installation called “Stim Cinema.”
Despite the London Film Festival’s busy schedule and large audience, several members of the collective and Eastwood found time to meet with everyone. THR Discussing the film and their creative experiences in a quieter corner of London’s Southbank Centre.
Their focus is on creating something that looks and feels different and appeals to them without having to educate the audience.
“I don’t think we necessarily have to educate our audience about autism,” Chown-Ahern shared THR. “We’re all autistic, and we all have different experiences of being autistic, but also different experiences of working and enjoying movies. So, the movie doesn’t say, ‘This is what it’s like to be autistic,’ but We just made a movie and some aspects of autism are there because that’s what we are like on a day-to-day basis”.
The creative concluded: “So for the audience, the best way I can say it is, ‘Don’t have any expectations about what you’re going to see because this is a completely different movie.'” The movie really pushes barriers and boundaries, probably because it doesn’t present a linear narrative. But it’s also not representative of what we typically see or think of as a movie.
Bradburn echoed the sentiment. “I hope people come away realizing that different ways of making films and different ways of storytelling are possible,” she told us THR. “I think historical documentaries in particular can be quite rigid. This film participated in the creative section of the London Film Festival, which I think really illustrates that this film is about the creative process. It’s about creation and collaboration.
She concluded: “I hope people can understand that their creative process doesn’t have to be a certain way. It doesn’t have to be neurotypical. It doesn’t have to fit this way or this language. There are different possibilities.
Eastwood recalls a moment during the creation of the film that illustrates this point. “We have an unlocked assembly cut, but we have a pretty good shape for the film,” he told us THR. “We did a test screening and some people who were not neurodivergent or autistic said, ‘You need more signposts. What about on-screen captions? You can’t ask the audience to trust that much in terms of process and pattern. Shockingly, everyone in the collective said, “No, we stand by our beliefs. “It’s not about holding hands. It’s about being open to exploring the frame, being curious, going with the flow and swinging.
he added voting pool It’s not about solving a riddle. “That’s what a lot of movies do,” Eastwood emphasizes. “They withhold information, make you curious, and then explain everything at the end.”
Jon Ahern laughed when the writer shared that he enjoyed certain aspects of the movie so much that he even went back and rewatched a scene the next day when he was struggling to understand something. “I think it’s definitely a movie that needs to be watched multiple times because there’s a lot in it, and as you watch different things, you’ll make some beautiful discoveries throughout the movie, and you’ll notice some Things you might not notice the first time you watch it,” she said. “So it makes me really happy that you went back and rewatched this scene, because that’s what we wanted in a way. We want people to come back, we want people to want to come back and relive it, whether it’s purely out of curiosity or out of curiosity. In conspiracy.
Without spoiling the ending, the film ends with a particularly memorable scene. The creative team said that throughout the development process, they had various conversations about how best to complete the film. The Collective and Eastwood agreed that they didn’t want a negative ending, but something that several creatives described as “celebratory” and “liberating.” Bradburn called it “a satisfying, natural end.”
voting pool Referring to the abandoned swimming pool that plays a key role in the film. But where did this idea come from? This is the location of two other collective members who were not present at the meeting THR Walker came up with a character described as a dog spirit animal. The collective hope is that all the characters will eventually come together in one location. At the same time, Brown was interested in test people as a concept and also in abandoned spaces. “He talks about rewilding civic space with autistic gestures, autistic behaviors,” Eastwood told THR. “So he came up with the idea of filming in an empty swimming pool, and then he came up with the concept of the stimulation pool, and then that became one of the iconic events.”
Another memorable part of the film is the gory zombie animation sequence provided by Elliot Knowles. “I wanted to showcase my love for the horror and sci-fi genres and thought why not?” Creative Narration THR When asked how he came up with the idea. “So I made a storyboard. I’m making an alternative history comic book style storyboard at home. In all the historical events of the world, women were able to be warriors and no one judged sex or gender. But they still had issues with race and Religion is the judge, so I decided to make a little storyboard about the American Civil War, featuring female Union soldiers. [fighting] Confederate zombies in the Louisiana swamp.
Could future films and the wider world see more from the collective? “I don’t want to impress anyone. We need to have some conversations,” Bradburn said. “I think all of us saw something in this whole process [also do] We wanted to do more work creating other things outside of film. Sam and I had just finished working on another film project, so we had a really good collaboration.
She added: “Lucy has a different character but is not fully integrated into the film and I work closely with her. I think Lucy and I particularly connect in that sense and Robin also has a connection with this alternative history project. Connection, that’s really cool and great, so we’ve all talked about wanting to actually work on all of these projects together.
Eastwood is proud voting pool proposed a different approach to filmmaking. “People think movies are just about character arcs and story structure,” he told THR. “What this movie is really saying is: What about movies that swing, swing, go with the flow, talk about the patterns and joys of repeating things? I think everyone has that joy, and the audience doesn’t have to be spoon-fed the structure.
Before the meeting ended, he had one more thing to stress. “The way this movie was made, as special as this movie is to us, is to make it completely accessible and inclusive,” Eastwood emphasized. “We have quiet spaces, we have advisors, we have advocates. , our cast is almost entirely autistic, and a large proportion of the crew also identify as neurodivergent, so people can identify their needs and that’s something we’re really proud of. It’s jointly owned. We’ve all agreed to edit it, and it’s really a jointly created project that we’re very willing to share.
