Relaxed screenings

Relaxed screening: The Horse Boy

Nominated for the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, The Horse Boy is at once intimate in emotions and epic in spirit.

Tuesday 27 July 18:00 NFT3

Tickets will be available to book either online, by calling (020 7928 3232) or by emailing the Box Office: box.office@bfi.org.uk

More information on relaxed screenings

USA 2009
Dir Michel Orion Scott
With Rupert Isaacson, Kristin Neff, Rowan Isaacson, Temple Grandin, Simon Baron-Cohen
93min
Digital
Some English subtitles

Reaching the end of their tether, Texas couple Rupert and Kristin whisk their troublesome four-year-old autistic son Rowan across the world in a desperate bid to restore balance to their disorderly lives. A film where nature’s limitless healing properties are foregrounded, the Outer Mongolian steppes serve as the perfect, Zen backdrop for an emotional, near transcendental rite of passage for the family.

This screening is presented in collaboration with Citizen Autistic: The London Autism Film Club, a welcoming neuro-diverse space bringing together like-minded individuals through a shared love of cinema.

Relaxed screenings are presented each month for those in the neuro-diverse community and their assistants and carers. More detailed information can be found at bfi.org.uk/relaxed.

Tickets £3.

This is the first of three relaxed screenings presented in response to The Reason I Jump, programmed by independent curator, Benjamin Brown.

“Really, our vision of the world can be incredible, just incredible …”
- Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Whether neuro-diverse or neurotypical, as human beings we are all born with our own unique ways of perceiving the world. However, for many on the autism spectrum, the problem comes when trying to impress that unique perspective onto others through words and gestures. Like a detuned radio, the signal is blocked, coming through only as hissing static.

Channelling several themes explored so effectively by The Reason I Jump, the season expresses the key role of the senses in our everyday lives and the transcendent power of nature to provide consolation to the inconsolable. It also conveys the vital importance of giving autistic people a say in how we are treated, and to extend us our rightful seat at society’s table.

As Naoki so poetically puts it, “if, by our being here, we could help the people of the world remember what truly matters for the earth, that would give us a quiet pleasure”.

BFI Southbank has been awarded the National Autistic Society's Autism Friendly Award.