Stephen Dwoskin: Face of Our Fear

A polemical and probing essay film on the media representation of disablement. Made by the renowned experimental filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin, Face of Our Fear was originally broadcast in 1992 as part of Channel 4’s ‘Disabling World’ season. Rich in archival material and expansive in its scope, the film examines the historical narratives and attitudes that have perpetuated through images of disability, with sources ranging from Classical antiquity, and the Middle Ages, to 19th century literature and Hollywood cinema. This screening will be followed by a panel discussion.

Face Of Our Fear is a richly conceived essay about the evolving image of disability. Dwoskin, a highly accomplished experimental filmmaker, begins with the declaration that the historically distorted images of people with disabilities constitute a “negation of selfhood”. He then traces this concerted effort through two thousand years of Western culture, beginning with the Greek notion of the idealised body and its opposite, the fabulous races. Using contemporary films clips, literary quotations, performance, and pictorial records, Face Of Our Fear looks at the Court’s infatuation with “monsters” during the Middle Ages, the “charity cripples” of the Enlightenment, the freakshows of the nineteenth century, each a resort to oppressive stigmatisation.

Film Curator Steve Seid