Community reporter Jill Huntesmith spoke to producer Suri Ellerton about an upcoming movie called ‘The Game’. The film focuses on the attempt made by John, a seriously ill father, to hide his poor health from his seven-year-old son Ben during a game of football at a local park.
John is not well enough to play the game but he tries to do so anyway because he wants to meet the expectations he feels society has of fathers. All fathers and mothers, he thinks, should be able to play physical games with their kids.
The result is that he pushes himself too far and the relationship between him and his son is changed forever.
Suri told Jill: “The film really is about the experience of chronically ill and disabled parents living in an ableist world. A lot of chronically ill and disabled parents feel they need to fit into a certain mould. A lot of people mask (hide) to try to present in a certain way that fits what they think a parent should look like.”
She added: “But actually that masking is harmful not only to them but also to the people around them. And this film is exploring that and the shift in that moment and the complexities around what it means to live with a chronically ill parent both from the parents’ perspective and the child’s perspective.”
Suri and several others involved in making the movie are chronically or disabled parents or are parenting together with partners who are ill or have an impairment.
Click below to listen to Suri’s interview with Jill.
The Game is due to be released early next year. If you want to watch a subtitled explanation of the film click here.
