Good evening and welcome to the inaugural Australian Disability Film Awards, held in recognition of the efforts of several individuals and organisations in promoting awareness and understanding for Australian families living with disabilities.
Tonight, I am privileged to be presenting the award for best supporting actor to someone who has excelled in their transformative portrayal of a young character with low-functioning autism and ADHD. The ability of this young man to play a character, not just his condition has stolen all our hearts, and I am honoured to present this award to Luke Ford, for his role as Charlie Mollison in the Black Balloon.
The Black Balloon dances a delicate line in it’s depiction of autism, with the film succeeding largely due to the consistent performance of Luke Ford enabling his character to stray away from the savant autism typical of the genre and create a unique, authentic character. Charlie’s autism is scarcely mentioned in the film, with Luke Ford ensuring that the mischievous humour of Charlie’s character is only exacerbated by his autism, with the audience growing to view Charlie as a human, rather than the result of a condition.…show more content… This leads to many touching interactions between the brothers, particularly in the culmination of the film, where Thomas has grown to understand Charlie as he is. The emotional comprehension of people living with low-functioning autism is low, and consistency of Luke Ford in his characterisation of Charlie in these confronting and emotional scenes is commendable; his ability to accurately reflect the reactions of an autistic male without overemphasising or dramatising his disability key in consideration of the success of this
