By Kyra Gillespie
A short film about Berwick wheelchair basketballer Bailey Jankovic has been shortlisted in the 2018 Focus On Ability (FOA) Short Film Awards.
Written, directed and produced by Christina Parker, the film titled ‘Life’s To Short To Hold Back’ is a five minute documentary about the 15-year-old’s experience with cerebral palsy, his love for wheelchair basketball and his dreams of becoming a Paralympian.
“The ‘To’ in the title is intentionally spelt that way because Bailey has a frame hanging on his wall with the motto with that same spelling. It’s a little touch of Bailey,” filmmaker Christina Parker said.
“I have known the Jankovic family for a long time and was thrilled when Bailey’s mum Michelle approached me about making the film for the FOA competition.
“I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”
In its 10th year running, FOA encourages filmmakers to focus on the ability of people with disability.
This year’s competition hit a record number of 297 entries, including 131 school entries and 63 international films.
Following successful screenings last year in New Zealand, New York, Zimbabwe and Malawi this year the competition received entries from a record number of countries 26 including, for the first time, Pakistan, Iran, Hong Kong and Tunisia.
Bailey’s short film can be found in the ‘Open Entrants – Documentary’ section of the competition.
“I’m a storyteller as well as a filmmaker so I really wanted to make sure I told Bailey’s story in the best way I could in five minutes.
“We crammed as much as we could in there about his journey through 16 operations and the process of going from using a wheelchair, to a walker, to walking independently.
“I ended up with at least eight hours of footage to edit, but you always need to get more footage when shooting documentaries because you don’t know what you’re going to use.”
Bailey is a disability advocate and has volunteered for the Royal Children’s Hospital, been the face of the Good Friday Appeal, worked with Variety Australia, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and so much more.
In the film, Bailey talks about the importance of striving for success.
“I have a motto that I live by every single day, and that is that life is way too short to hold back,” Bailey said.
“You cannot give anything but 100 per cent; you can give more, but you cannot give any less that than that or you’ll end up going backwards.
“If I don’t live life to the fullest my disability could take control of me, and I can’t let that happen.”
Each entry tallies online votes as well as the judges votes.
Every day during voting, online voters go in the running to win a $50 iTunes voucher.
Voting ends 3 July at http://www.focusonability.com.au/
Winners attend a red-carpet event at The Concourse in Sydney on 5 September this year.
