This Ability
2006 · 29m · Canada
Directed by Lorna Boschman
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
In Burnaby, adults with developmental disabilities join a media club for a year of workshops and mentorship, learning to film and tell their own stories from their own perspectives.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects this to be inspiration-porn, but Boschman refuses the easy uplift—she just lets the subjects *be*, which is somehow more radical and honestly more interesting than the usual disability documentary playbook.
A formally modest but carefully structured work that inherits the observational documentary tradition while maintaining compositional restraint; the year-long arc allows for genuine narrative development rather than epiphanic moments.
The decision to step back and let the workshop participants' own footage and narration drive the story—trusting their framing over an external authority—is what transforms this from well-intentioned into genuinely alive.