CABBAGE

Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada | 2023 | 25 min

Reformulating language and putting what is kept at the margins back into the centre, illuminating relationships of care at its core, discussing the subtle violence of a bureaucratic and ableist logic that fails to capture the nuances of a life lived fully even in a non-verbal manner, Cabbage gives room to the powerful speech of a non-mobile person who communicates through eye-tracking technology. At the same time, it deals with the reflections of a mother who rethinks the concepts of freedom and dignity outside of that paradigm. Focusing on the minimal poetry of this powerful yet silent communication, the film denounces prior cuts to disability services that originally forced the family to move from Ireland to Canada and requires the viewer to tune in to a communication that is made of listening and searching, of echoes and shared explorations, creating a great emotional spatiality. (l.f.)