Inside WE’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS starring British deaf and disabled actors

Director Missy Malek’s WE’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS shares a story about a group of deaf and disabled teenagers who live on a London estate and get into drug dealing. This topical story is inspired by a true story.

Keron shares “This film is fundamentally about the underestimation of disabled people. It tells its story in a way that’s rarely done, by people who are rarely, authentically, on screen”, whilst Jayden notes “This film is important because it shows a group of mixed people with different disabilities coming together as one, all breaking barriers in place!”.

Missy Malek is an actor and filmmaker from London of Middle-Eastern descent. She completed her undergraduate degree in Philosophy at Oxford University, where she made her first short film, LAUGHING BRANCHES. Her second short film, TALA, premiered at the Santa-Barbara Film Festival. Her feature film script, ZULEIKHA, was listed as a semi-finalist in the Oscars’ screenwriting competition, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, in which it ranked in the Top 40 scripts. As an actor, she recently completed filming on David E. Kelly’s new show ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL, and is currently playing Osric in HAMLET opposite Ian Mckellen. In October, she will take on the lead role of Anya in the play THE CHERRY ORCHARD, in which Ian Mckellen will play Firs, and Francesca Annis will play Madame Ranevsky.

Producer Sam Barnham 1st Assistant Directed the LFF 2021 selected short film, FOR LOVE, directed by Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor. He followed this by 1sting FESTIVAL OF SLAPS, BIFA nominated writer/director Abdou Cisse’s BBC Films funded short film.
Deaf producer Camilla Arnold is one of the founders and Creative Director of Flashing Lights Media, an independent deaf-led television production company. They have just released their fourth series of the award-winning MAGIC HANDS for CBeebies. Camilla is the first deaf female series producer for the BBC with documentaries for BBC and Channel 4 under her belt.

The beautiful cinematography was created by Arran Green who shot 0121 for BBCiPlayer and director Charlotte Regan. WE’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS was executive produced by David Proud and the Co-Produced Deaf Talent Collective, “When I read this script I was blown away as it wasn’t written as a disability film, it didn’t sound like one, or feel like one. Which made it one of the most authentic scripts about disability I had read ever. You see it was just a story, with natural dialogue, it was entertaining. No pity, no stereotypes. Just fresh and engaging. Living with a disability isn’t always about the disability, it’s about life in general, the highs and lows. Missy wrote about people who just happened to be disabled, and that distinction is a very important one.”

WE’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS can be seen at The 2022 London Short Film Festival.