‘My Eyes Are Up Here’ Jillian Mercado Stars In New Film Premiering At Tribeca Film Festival

My Eyes Are Up Here is a new comedy about a disabled woman who goes in search of the morning-after pill. The short film will premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in June. It stars Jillian Mercado (The L Word: Generation Q) as Sonya, a successful model who isn’t looking to date, and Ben Cura as Tom, someone she’s met through her current gig, who hopes their evening together might lead to more.

My Eyes Are Up Here is directed by Nathan Morris, with a screenplay by Arthur Meek and Aminder Virdee, who also served as Director’s Attachment and the Accessibility & Inclusion Consultant for the film.

Forbes spoke via email with Mercado, Virdee, Meek and Morris about creating My Eyes Are Up Here. We also discussed why there is a strong need for more films depicting disabled people in romantic storylines and what it means for the film to debut at Tribeca Film Festival.

Risa Sarachan: Jillian, when did you get involved with the project? What about this script spoke to you and felt like something you could add your talents to?

Jillian Mercado: I got involved with a project probably a year or two before I got the audition for The L Word. So, I wasn’t fully committed to being an actress, although something spoke to me about this specific character. I was willing to venture into the world to get the opportunity to bring this character to life during that time. I do get a lot of people wanting me to be part of their project if it involves disability. There were many times when I’ve had to respectfully decline [a role], but as soon as I took my time to read Aminder’s script, I resonated with the story because it was something I was familiar with – I always want to humanize my community in a way where it wasn’t inspiration porn. That and also the fact that she is also part of the community really helped me as accepting the role, especially dealing with sex and romance.

The disability community hasn’t really gotten a good repertoire of what that can look like on screen for millions to see. It’s always been considered extremely taboo and unflattering. People who don’t have disabilities have been narrating the story that we don’t deserve love or romance or be in a situation where we could become pregnant. So upon reading the script, I knew how great of an opportunity this could be not only for myself to talk about something that I have been preaching about for a very long time but also for people that have this mindset [who] can hopefully be guided to a better understanding that we as well can go through something similar. Something that we can all relate to because it does happen to our community as well.

Sarachan: Aminder, how did the initial collaborative effort to make this film come to be?

Aminder Virdee: As an artist who at the time was working on installation performance art and interested in utilizing theatrical devices seeking to challenge societal injustices, oppressions, and discrimination, I was selected as one of four lead artists for a creative development residency at Magnetic North Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2016.

During this time, I was residing in Aberdeen, and Arthur was in Edinburgh through a playwright exchange between New Zealand and Scotland, where he spent three months with Magnetic North Theatre as a Writer-in-Residence. Arthur was also chosen as a lead artist for this residency during those three months. At the residency, Arthur and I learned a lot about each other’s practices through presentations, sitting in on workshops each of us led separately, and our final performances. During my final performance titled What’s Wrong With You? (a comedic narrative subverting the assumptions, misconceptions and invasive questions disabled people are asked on a daily basis), I found it incredibly interesting that only a handful of people outwardly laughed out loud. The majority covered their mouths or stifled themselves, preventing their laughter from escaping – seeming unsure if they should laugh. This happens a lot when the person with these identity aspects addresses assumptions and oppressions around disability, race, gender, sexuality, and poverty, through humor. Arthur was one of the few in the audience who laughed out loud. Straight after the performance, Arthur asked me to join forces to create a short film utilizing my past experiences, and artistic material (some of which include the dialogue and aspects from my work What’s Wrong With You?) alongside his playwriting expertise and contacts. We formed a partnership after the residency and kept in contact as friends to discuss potential collaborations, exchange ideas and voices, and combine our disparate histories and skills into a practical alliance.

Throughout 2017 to 2018, we engaged in weekly Skype sessions to flesh out a storyline that combined Arthur’s script and playwriting skills, my creative writing skills, my experiences and the knowledge that there were many disabled intersectional BIPOC women (gathered through consented conversations with loved ones, friends and group discussions) with similar life experiences, predominantly those who were born and grew up as disabled with visible differences in a society that treats disabled people (and more so for disabled Black and Brown people) as second class citizens. And disabled Black and Brown women with visible differences remain unheard and unseen in contemporary mainstream media.

As a result of all of this, My Eyes Are Up Here was formed.

After we had written the script, Arthur spoke to me about dispersing the script to directors, producers, and filmmakers within his circle and network. Through this, I was introduced to a friend of Arthur’s, Nathan Morris.

Risa Sarachan: Jillian, you are a person who has made a career out of humanizing the disability community. How much of the character did you connect with? Did you feel you ever needed to adjust parts of the script that didn’t feel realistic to your lived experience?

Mercado: I think one of the first things that I told the team was how much I connected with my character as far as she is very outspoken and knows what she wants. Also, someone who lives their life to the fullest and goes after their dreams and aspiration is something that I related to. I also used to be very much of a party girl and this character is as well. The biggest thing I can relate to her is the fact that she keeps a lot to herself as far as her struggles and challenges because of her disability, and she prefers not to tell people that she’s romantically linked to about the situation is because if they’re not going to be a long-term situation, why waste time. Also, the fact that it takes a certain person to fully sit down and understand why she keeps things to herself and she’s afraid of being vulnerable. In my life, personally, I am pretty comfortable being vulnerable, but I can absolutely understand why people choose not to be. The world has been in such an ablest mindset that it’s easier to not be vulnerable. When you want to change people’s mindsets, there wasn’t much I changed with a script to be relatable to my own life. Since it’s not a documentary, I wanted to bring Aminder’s real-life experiences to life more than my own. I think the one thing we might have changed was the use of assistive devices. Other than that, I was more focused on bringing a story to life as much as possible while still being able to relate to it.

Sarachan: Arthur and Aminder, without giving too much away, My Eyes Are Up Here touches on those with ableist mindsets, not believing that disabled people have relationships or sexual experiences. Why was it important to include this in the story?

Meek: When we started working on a story, Aminder had very strong feelings about what she didn’t want the story to be about: she felt the characteristic portrayals of disability in mainstream stuff were things like ‘poor me’ pity party or ‘inspiration porn.’ That was good to know, but I think to change the world, an artist has to move beyond describing ‘wrong’ and create a vision of what ‘right’ looks like. I challenged her to describe what she did want to see on screen. The first thing she said was, “Lots of disabled people have sex!” Everything snowballed from there.

Virdee: For me, it was essential to ensure many assumptions, misconceptions, negative imagery and injustices were addressed and subverted in this short film. As a disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill Brown woman of the South Asian diaspora, living with many visible differences and invisible conditions, I cannot remember a day I have not been met with some form of ableism, racism, sexism, classism, other social injustice, or been hypersexualized or desexualized. I was born in the latter half of the 80s before the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995. I have encountered oppression, trauma, abuse, and social injustices almost daily, and I felt this was important to share as it is utterly exhausting and devastating – mentally, physically, and socially.

Only recently, scientists are acknowledging that experiencing just one form of oppression your whole life is a severe trauma akin to PTSD, so experiencing quadruple is incomprehensible, especially as non-disabled people assume that we, disabled people, do not experience other difficult circumstances in life such as bereavements, relationship breakdowns, marriage, divorce, medical trauma, and much more. So, addressing additional obstacles alongside Sonya as a sexual being was not only necessary but authentic as we, disabled people, anticipate and prepare for such challenging encounters, so we create hacks and tools to navigate a world that wasn’t built for us, and this includes emotional guards from experiencing overt discrimination – visible within Sonya and her character. Trying to address so many experiences in a short film isn’t possible – that experience is beyond words, so film felt like the perfect medium to convey and address what is possible.

I felt it was essential to show as many sides to Sonya’s life; however, her character and sexuality are the driving force behind this short film. Disabled people are like anyone else regarding sex and sexuality. We encompass many genders and sexualities and have desires, needs, and wants. However, representing disabled people as sexual beings – without stereotypes and tropes of pity – is something that is unseen, ostracised and dismissed as being non-existent by non-disabled people.

The obstacles Sonya encounters in this short are direct experiences from my lived experience. When I was 19, on the way to get the morning-after pill, I was met by a lot of ableism, sexual ableism and racial discrimination as a sexual person by a pharmacist of the same race and ethnicity as I, as well as being questioned about my ability to be a mother. We didn’t incorporate all aspects of my experience, as this isn’t possible, so we highlighted the ableist oppressions held by many (of any gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, or class). This was pivotal as disabled people are the largest minority in the world (as disability can occur to all, regardless of identity) yet are the most oppressed.

I also wanted to use a personal narrative and experience as a disabled person of color, which is something I have never seen on television, film or other media. Yet, acquiring the morning-after pill is a universal experience affecting many disabled people and many non-disabled women, non-binary and trans people. This short tells the story from a lens that has never been amplified until now. Merging universal experiences with marginalized experiences through humor and raw honesty is a common thread within my other work as an artist and community justice facilitator. I do this to unite these assumed disparate experiences to start a dialogue to challenge injustices. This drive also underpins this short film as it is an innate passion ingrained in many areas of my life – life and art often blur.

Sarachan: Nathan and Aminder, when you set forth to direct this short, what were your main priorities in telling this story?

Morris: It’s all about the performance for me – I want it to be genuine and convincing. My top goal in telling the story is to showcase Sonia as both strong and vulnerable, which is not an easy feat. She’s built a tough exterior, through necessity to cope with the world, but she’s s learning to open up and let maybe love in! I wanted to do her justice, to make the performance nuanced. Plus, I try and be hyper-aware of how men see the world. I grew up in a household dominated by women, so I didn’t want the film to have some cliché male gaze. Getting the tone from Tom right was important, too. He needed to be vulnerable but not weak – she deserves someone who’s awesome.

Virdee: Having additional roles, such as Director’s Attachment, was pivotal to creating this short film. It enabled Nathan and me to work together to ensure the short film was directed from my lens and guaranteed that the portrayal of each scene almost mimicked lived experience, bringing in an additional layer of authenticity. As a film traversing social change and justice, sexual liberation for all – including disabled people – is just as important and should be celebrated – all the joyful and painful moments in the day.

Sarachan: Nathan, what does it mean to have My Eyes Are Up Here selected for the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival?

Morris: Getting into Tribeca was a major oh wow moment for me. It’s freaking unbelievable, and honestly, I still can’t wrap my head around it. We found out a few weeks before it was announced, and let me tell you, it was damn near impossible to keep quiet about it. When the news was officially announced, I literally shed a tear – which surprised me because I thought I had my cool. But man, that’s when it really hit me.

Filmmaking can be a lonely business, you know? Especially when you’re trying to get funding, write the script, and find a solid crew who believe in the project. Shorts are hard. So, to get the stamp of approval from a prestigious festival like Tribeca is a massive boost of encouragement. Being around other filmmakers at festivals is amazing – you feel inspired and uplifted. This whole experience has really blown me away. I’m beyond excited and apparently, so is my imposter syndrome! I’m just so damn happy to have found such amazing people to work with, and it makes me even more excited about what’s to come in the future.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

My Eyes Are Up Here will premiere at Tribeca Film Festival. Tickets can be purchased here.