Creativity and Disability: When Challenges Spark Innovation

Working with disabled filmmakers, actors and crew often challenges the habits of the industry whilst at the same time providing a springboard for creativity and innovation. Our panel of writers, filmmakers and access coordinators will share their experiences on and off film sets.

Speakers:

MATILDA FEYIṢAYỌ IBINI | Writer and filmmaker

ABBIE HILLS | Access Coordinator and Talent Agent

MARI SANDERS | Writer-director

Moderator:

ANNA HIGGS | Managing Director
Character 7

About the speakers:

MATILDA FEYIṢAYỌ IBINI | Writer and filmmaker
Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is a multi-award-winning, bionic playwright, author and filmmaker of Nigerian heritage. Matilda was selected as a Star of Tomorrow 2020 by Screen Daily Magazine; a feature screenplay they co-wrote with Gabriel-Bisset Smith was selected as part of The Brit List 2020; they were a BFI Flare x BAFTA 2023 mentee; and Inevitable Foundation x Loreen Arbus Elevate Collective Award Grantee 2024; and received the 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama. Matilda's debut feature 'CARING' a horror-comedy about a disabled woman who finally finds a great carer — only to discover their carer is a serial killer; is currently being backed by BBC Film, and produced by Dominic Buchanan at HOME TEAM, the project is currently casting & financing ahead of a late 2025 shoot. Matilda's screen credits include: BAFTA TV-Nominated ‘CripTales’ for BBC America & BBC4. ‘Unprecedented’ Series, Headlong & Century Films for BBC4, 'Head Over Wheels' a short film produced by Open Sky Theatre & Wrapt Films won two awards at the 2021 Digital Culture Network Awards and ‘MO <3 KYRA’ a short film produced by Film4 and 104 Films debuted at the BFI London Film Festival 2023. They have written on Amazon Prime’s series ‘Wilderness’ (2023) and BBC's 'The Dumping Ground' (2025).

ABBIE HILLS | Access Coordinator and Talent Agent
Abbie Hills is a writer, actor and access coordinator shaping more inclusive storytelling in film and TV. A National Diversity Award winner and one of the UK’s first trained access coordinators, she founded The Dazey Hills Company in 2019 to champion disabled talent across screen and stage. Named one of INvolve’s Global Role Model Top 50, Abbie recently returned to writing with Follow Me Down, her debut feature script, which earned a spot on the Gold List at the British Independent Film Festival. She made a return to producing this year and is currently in post production with short film Immaterial. 

MARI SANDERS | Writer-director
Mari Sanders (1988) graduated in 2012 from AKV St. Joost in Breda with a bachelor in Audiovisual Design. He presented himself as a writer/director with his graduation film “Rue Des Invalides”, a short film with autobiographical elements about a boy in a wheelchair looking for love in wheelchair-hostile Paris. A year after graduating he made the short film ‘Sync’ within the framework of a Dutch talent development program, the award-winning Youth Film Go Daan Go’ and his first documentary ‘80% Disabled’ a comical documentary road movie about the pros and cons of receiving government benefits for being disabled. His personal views on disabilities (Mari was born with Cerebral Palsy, uses a manual wheelchair and is not able to walk) and the theme of ‘the lonesome traveler trying to fit in’ are returning themes in his films.