Hear Me Out
2018 · 3m · New Zealand
Directed by Jason Boberg
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Deaf MP Mojo Mathers fights to pass her bill ensuring disability-inclusive democracy in her final term.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
On the surface it's a standard disability-rights doc, but Boberg's refusal to sentimentalize Mathers or smooth over the political messiness—letting her exist as legislator first, symbol second—is genuinely contrarian in a landscape drowning in inspiration-porn narratives.
A formally disciplined three-minute portrait that understands its debt to the political documentary tradition while refusing grandiloquence; the restraint in editing and the decision to let legislative process breathe as dramatic material shows real curatorial sophistication.
The film's entire power hinges on one choice: staying close on Mathers' face during moments of bureaucratic friction rather than cutting to the bill or the chamber, making her presence—her *insistence*—the actual legislation.