Being Heumann gets UK premiere at London Film Festival as disability rights face new threat

Being Heumann, a new film about the American disability rights campaigner Judy Heumann, has had its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. The premiere took place on the red carpet at one of the festival's gala screenings, with the film presented as both a celebration of Heumann's life and a warning about the fragility of disability rights.

Known as the mother of the disability rights movement, Heumann contracted polio as a small child. She spent her life fighting for rights others could take for granted, including the right to go to school and the right to get the teaching licence she had studied for. She died three years before the film's UK premiere. The film is set in 1970s America and stars Ruth Madeley as Heumann, described as a lifelong campaigner for disabled people.

The red carpet interview with Madeley focused on how she prepared for the role. She said she worked with a dialect coach to move from her Bolton accent to a Brooklyn accent. She also used interviews, articles and YouTube footage of Heumann, including speeches from different parts of her life, as research.

Asked whether the rights Heumann fought for are being undone, Madeley said they are under threat. She said the film's release is timely, especially in America, where she said the very law Heumann fought to pass is under threat. She added that the film is a reminder of what it took to win those laws and the knock-on effects they had in the United States and in the UK, including the Disability Discrimination Act.

Madeley described herself as an incurable optimist and said she believes there are good people who want to do the right thing. Asked what Heumann would do today, she said Heumann would be storming more buildings and would tell the younger generation to do the same. She said Heumann never relented.

Film clips shown at the premiere included a scene in which Heumann challenges the idea that a disabled person is the problem in front of stairs. 'They see you in front of the stairs, and they think that you're the problem,' she says, before repeating, 'You are not the problem. You are not the problem. You are not the problem. The stairs are the problem.' The premiere comes as disability rights are once again in the political spotlight. The report framed the film as a stark reminder of what is at risk and a tribute to the woman widely acknowledged as the mother of the disability rights movement.