Vera is 23, fun-loving and entirely unconcerned with the future — until an accident leaves her in a wheelchair and forces her to figure out who she actually is. Stand Up, the feature debut of Dutch writer-director Mari Sanders, follows Vera as she’s drawn into the world of Zander, a 22-year-old aspiring stand-up comedian who has been a wheelchair user since birth — and who wears that fact like a badge of honor.
The film world premieres in the international narrative competition at the Tribeca Festival on June 6. Starring Lucia Zemene, Daan Buringa, Kendrick Etmon, Hana Hussein, Guy Clemens and Tamar van den Dop, it was shot by Sal Kroonenberg and edited by Yorgos Mavropsaridis. Loco Films is handling sales.
Sanders, who uses a wheelchair himself, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the film’s autobiographical roots, why disability has been an “artistic goldmine” that cinema keeps getting wrong, and what happened when the Dutch film industry’s casting call for wheelchair-using actors received exactly zero responses.
What was your inspiration to make Stand Up and make it as you did — showing disabled people as people rather than maybe a sidekick who gets treated differently from other characters?
I started work on this project seven or eight years ago, and it’s my cinema debut. I always felt basically what you were saying. So many films about disability, or quite a lot, didn’t make me happy. I didn’t feel really represented. It’s not all about representation, but it’s important.
There are so many stories around disability … It’s an artistic goldmine, really. And everybody just touches the surface. I felt a responsibility, because I’m in a wheelchair myself, to show what happens when people with disabilities tell their stories, and really their stories — what for me is at the core of having a disability.
I landed on the fact that it’s way more about the social surrounding than about the fact that you’re disabled. Of course, sometimes it sucks to be in a wheelchair. But what really sucks is the fact that people portray you completely differently and project their own thoughts onto you. You become a symbol in many ways, in good and bad ways. And that was the journey I wanted to tell.
Could you tell me a bit more about Vera’s journey in the film and how you thought about it?
I was really surprised that no film that I have seen really took disability as a mourning process, as a process of transition, as a rite of passage. Getting a disability is really a little passage towards a new stage in your life, and I really wanted to tell that story.
I’ve been in a wheelchair all my life. I don’t know otherwise, but I talk to many people who got a disability later in life, and then, of course, sometimes you ask the question: Do you dream about having a different life? And they all say no. “If I had the choice, I would follow the life I’m following now,” which is very interesting.
Why do you think that is?
That means that the disability takes away stuff, but it also gives you lots of stuff. I had the audacity to ask what if this woman who really doesn’t know what to do with her life gets a disability, and that disability helps her to get direction and really get to the core of what she actually wants. Not to make it too romantic a narrative — it sometimes just sucks — but it also gives you stuff. And it gives you a different take on life.
I loved seeing those very basic human themes that Stand Up explores, in addition to specific wheelchair-related issues.
It’s a universal thing. There are moments in human lives when something happens that really gets to the core of who I am and who I want to be, and all of a sudden I see very clearly what I want, and I cut out all the bullshit. Most of those experiences come from mourning, from letting stuff go. We are humans and we are quite stupid. We [sometimes] need accidents and we need disaster to really make choices, and I think disability is one of them.
There is a cinema scene in Stand Up where a cinema staff member tells a group of friends in wheelchairs to move to the back of the screening room. I really liked that scene but was curious if that is based on real-life experiences?
One of the most frustrating things about being disabled are the administration of rules that are based on basically nothing. In the Netherlands, the fire brigade decided that it’s dangerous to be there [in the theater], and I have asked how many people in wheelchairs died last year during a fire in a cinema. What’s the reasoning? I really feel this is an emotional decision and absolutely not a practical one.
So, the cinema scene was really based on actual experiences. The fire department says that they have to be there in the back because of safety. But safety for who? Because if there’s a fire, are you honestly telling us that you care about the safety of other people more? Because the argument is often that they can trip over [a wheelchair] if there is a panic. But I have to go to the exit as well. So, whose safety are we talking about?
It’s very interesting that you like that scene, because the Dutch film fund watched it and said that the people with disabilities are not sympathetic in that scene. And I asked: “Who says that people with disabilities are good people?”
I hear you asking viewers to treat people with disabilities as people rather than go into a special mode.
That’s basically what this film is about in the end. Why do people do that? Where is the panic coming from? Why is it all of a sudden awkward, or why do we want to overprotect? I think we want to do good as human beings, we just sometimes don’t know what the good thing is. When the social script is gone, people panic.
You are a mirror to people in many ways. I think the beauty of disability is that every time you enter a room, there’s something happening, and if you observe closely enough, you get to know the people immediately. You know who you can trust because you are something that is not in the normal social script. So people have to adapt, and the way they react says a lot about them. So you have a few seconds to really look into their soul.
How did you approach the casting for the film?
I started the casting process very early, because I like to rehearse and adapt the scripts based on the rehearsals. During the funding [stage], we did a casting call, which was super simple: I wanted talent with a disability, no experience required. Our casting director basically shared it with the whole film industry in the Netherlands. And we had zero reactions.
What?! What did you do?
I am lucky enough to have made some documentaries about disability in the Netherlands, so people know my face, especially in the disability community. So I decided to put the casting call on my own social network, and it spread like wildfire. In one weekend, we got more than 80 reactions.
That taught me one thing: There was this big wall between the disability community and the film industry. It was so wonderful — the amount of talent that came our way and the uniqueness.
What we decided to do was to search for an accessible location, which was hard enough, and we decided to work for two weekends, putting in our own money. We invited the 10 most interesting people, no matter which disability they had.
What happened was that they all came in quite scared. And then I really saw this emancipation wave in front of my eyes during those weekends. They became friends, and they got the feeling that they were not the only one dreaming about [acting]. The cinema scene, for instance, originated in those weekends. For an improvisation, I told them there was this cinema employee who tells them they should sit somewhere else, “and you try to fuck with him as long as you can.” And then I wrote that into the script. And in the end, I decided I wanted them all in the film. So, that scene has a big group of friends, and I made sure they were all in it.
Did you put something of you into one of the two lead characters, whether Vera or Zander?
Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? In a way, I am both characters at the same time, because both voices are inside me. One voice tells me all the time: Mari, you’re in a wheelchair, but you have to adapt, you have to try to stay as normal as possible! And the other voice, Xander, is basically saying: “Fuck off, I’m in a wheelchair, I’m going to sit outside of society and live a life there and shout that I’m in a wheelchair and that I don’t care as loudly as possible!”
So, it’s a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation?
Yeah, it is a bit Jekyll and Hyde. I think those two coping mechanisms are very symbolic. I see them everywhere around me in people with disabilities. There’s this tendency of really trying to blend in, even though the world is not adapting to you, so it’s way harder for you than for somebody else. And you see this tendency of: “I’m a victim of society, and I’m going to behave as such.” I can understand both. In a way, Stand Up is the love story between those two coping mechanisms. I think they both have their flaws, but they tell us a lot, and I understand both characters quite well. I have both characters in me.
What I found to be the most interesting part is what happens to Xander. He shows himself as this arrogant and flamboyant guy, but in the end we see that he’s way more injured than Vera actually is. I really like these stories where the master turns into the pupil in the end. I really wanted to create two characters with their own flaws.
Original Article on Hollywood Reporter