Film & Disability

Film Programming

I am a queer, deafblind, freelance film programmer and curator with a specialised interest in disability representation. You can read more about my programming experience and projects below:

I was President of RGU Film Society whilst studying at Robert Gordon University, where I organised and led a short film festival in 2019.

I have been a submissions previewer for a number of festivals, including Take One Action! Film Festivals, Women X Film Festival, London Short Film Festival, and Edinburgh Short Film Festival.

In 2020, I underwent Cinema For All’s Access Launchpad scheme to gain more practical knowledge about the running of a community cinema. With funding support from Cinema For All and Film Hub Scotland, I delivered an online screening and Q&A as part of my pop-up cinema, Caption This Cinema.

In 2021, I completed a Film Curation Fellowship as part of Aya Film’s Curate-It. I curated Left For Deaf, a collection of short films exploring disability and deafness in the horror and thriller genres, which was available to watch through Curate-It’s screening platform.

Left for Deaf logo. Illustration of a wolf’s head overlapping the centre of a full moon. The wolf is bearing its fangs and wearing an eyepatch. There is red, cursive text above and below the wolf, which reads “Left for Deaf. Deafness & disability in horror”.

In 2022, I was honoured to be invited to be a Judge for Deaffest’s TV & Film Awards.

For Edinburgh Filmhouse and Belmont Filmhouse, I curated a weekender of films to celebrate Deaf Awareness Week, which included A Quiet Place 2 and Sound of Metal.

I was a lead programmer for the 2023 edition of BFI’s Busting the Bias Film Festival, which was later rebranded to We Crip Film Festival. I curated a short film programme titled ECLECTIC, which screened at BFI Southbank and was made available on BFI Player.

ECLECTIC on BFI Player. Screenshot of the holding page for BFI Player’s feature of ECLECTIC. White text reads “ECLECTIC, a shorts programme curated by deafblind access consultant Charlie Little, explores a range of genres, Disability experiences, and Disability storytelling.”

For the release of Ella Glendining’s Is There Anybody Out There?, I was involved in curating and organising a roundtable event and a panel event on behalf of Conic Films.

In 2024, I worked with Take One Action! Film Festival, Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF), and Edinburgh Deaf Festival to curate a programme of short films exploring Deaf and disabled perspectives, intersectional identities, queer ecology, and our connection to the natural world and climate justice. Titled ‘Our World: Signs for the Future’, the first screening took place at the Edinburgh Deaf Festival. An expanded programme and filmmaker Q&A took place at the 2024 edition of SQIFF.

Take One Action x SQIFF 2025. Wide-shot, side perspective of a Q&A in a cinema screening room. People are sitting in cinema seats and bean bags, facing four panellists sitting in a row in front of the projector screen.

In 2024, I supported the development and launch of Deaf Action’s BSL Film Club, and I programme monthly screenings with co-programmer Tomas Gerrard.

As part of Crip Cinema Collective, I co-curated a panel and presentation on the representation of disabled women in cinema for the BFI’s Women With A Movie Camera Summit 2025, which took place at BFI Southbank

I was a lead programmer for the BFI’s We Crip Film Festival, which took place at BFI Southbank in July 2025. This festival champions disability storytelling, filmmaking, and community action.

Deaf President Now! post-screening discussion with Ted Evans and Sophie Stone at WCFF 2025. Three people are sitting in a Q&A in front of a large projector screen with the We Crip Film Festival logo.

I was a curator for Independent Cinema Office’s ‘Crip Melodrama: She’s Hysterical’ tour, along with Emily Simmons and Florence Grieve. This tour of Todd Haynes’ Safe (1995) screenings and events examined the representation of disabled women within melodrama.

‘Crip Melodrama: She’s Hysterical’ at Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Charlie is standing in front of a projector screen in a cinema, speaking into a microphone. They are a white person in their late twenties with dark blonde, curly hair above their shoulder. There is another person standing near them, providing BSL interpretation to the audience.

I am part of the Leith Kino collective, a weekly pop-up cinema at Leith Depot, Edinburgh. I programmed and presented a screening of Reid Daveport’s portrait documentary, I Didn’t See You There, in November 2025. The programming notes are available to read on Leith Kino’s Substack. I also screened Tod Browning’s Freaks in February 2026. You can read my programming notes on the Substack.

I Didn’t See You There at Leith Kino, Leith Depot, Edinburgh. Close-up of a projector screen displaying an event holding slide.

Caption This Cinema

(Caption This Cinema is currently on hiatus)

I founded Caption This Cinema — a pop-up cinema with access at its core, striving to empower and champion disabled audiences. Caption This aims to provide accessible cinema experiences, as well as disability representation in its programming.

Caption This’ inaugural screening took place in 2022 through the online screening platform Eventive. Rodney Evans’ profound documentary, Vision Portraits (2019), was screened, followed by an online Q&A with disabled curators, Theresa Heath and Tara Brown.

You can find out more by reading this article featured in The Press and Journal.

Logo for Caption This Cinema. Black background, with a red outline of three cinema seats on the bottom. There is a rectangular, white outline depicting a cinema screen. IN the middle of the depicted screen, Caption This in bold white letters. Below, the words accessible cinema in white letters.
Caption This Cinema logo. Illustration of a black background with a white outline of a cinema screen with white text that reads “Caption This. Accessible Cinema.” Overlapping the screen are red outlines of three cinema seats.