Document Film Festival Why is Mr W. Laughing?

Why is Mr W. Laughing? is a portrait of three members of an atelier community of artists with different disabilities. Questioning the usual asymmetry of inclusion (meaning that often there is just a monologue about and not a dialogue with the persons concerned), the film is a cinematic experiment that politicises boundary-practices in its form and content: Rather than making a film about inclusion, the film itself was produced inclusively. The juxtaposition of life and art doesn’t apply for the three who are artists in order to be citizens. Art for them is not a breakaway dream from normality, like for most neurotypical artists, but the quintessence of bourgeois work that enables them to participate in society and to find solidarity.

Jana Papenbroock | Germany | 2016 | 1hr 16m