The Stimming Pool is an experimental—at times fantastical—hybrid feature film, co-created by a collective of autistic artists, the Neurocultures Collective, and filmmaker Steven Eastwood, who invite you into a neurodiverse world within the undulating logic of neurotypical environments.
A B-Movie film club host introduces a lost animated horror movie; a young woman fills out questionnaires and watches sequences in an eye tracking test; an office worker goes about their life, masking their autistic nature; a picture book tells the story of an enigmatic dog-human spirit watching over people with disabilities.
The Stimming Pool is an experimental and sometimes magical hybrid film whose drifting form is built around the concept of an autistic camera. The curiosity of this camera discovers a relay of subjects who stray through the world, revealing environments often hostile to autistic experience - such as a hectic workplace and a crowded pub - and quiet spaces that offer respite from them. Sometimes the camera wanders off without any guide, finding an ancient woodland, an abandoned testing centre, even a fragment from an animated zombie film set in the American civil war...
Like a Russian doll of Where’s Wally scenes, the film invites the audience to take pleasure in exploring details in every part of the frame. Each of the characters exists in a separate world nested inside one other and often jumping up and down levels. But gradually we come to realise they have common experiences. Some are concealing their autism and dealing with the resulting feelings of isolation, while others thrive in the communities and support structures around them.
All, however, have a shared objective: to find a place where they are free to move and stim, uninhibited by the tests and restrictions of normative society. This secret place is the Stimming Pool...
2024 / 70 mins / UK / English
Trailer
Filmmakers - the Neurocultures Collective and Steven Eastwood
+ Autism Plays Itself (18 mins) Director: Janet Harbord
A film shot in 1957 in at the Maudsley Hospital, London, captures the movements and behaviour of children under observation for atypical behaviour. In the present day, three autistic respondents watch the footage, bringing new insightful interpretations of the children’s behaviour as they explore the sparse environment of the clinic.
Through speculation and identification, with wit and audacity, the responses forge a new soundtrack from an autistic point of view. As the film evolves, it takes on the rhythms and repetitions of the children’s activities, becoming a playful homage to the body language of autism.
Trailer
This is a Relaxed Screening, which means:
- The lights will be dimmed but not off
- Volume levels will be a little lower than usual
- You are free to make noise, stim, sit where you feel comfortable, move around, or to enter and exit at any time
- Awkwardness will be embraced
- Doors to the auditorium will be open earlier than usual, at 10am, to help keep the foyer a relaxed space
- There will be a designated quiet space in The Clearing area above the auditorium, available to anyone who needs it
Auditorium:
The Clearing (Quiet Space):
If you have any questions or if there's anything else we can do to help make this Relaxed Screening more accessible to you, please get in touch by emailing: info@folkestonedocumentaryfestival.co.uk
