“I couldn’t believe that Canada would bar families from immigrating to their country just because they had a child who had an intellectual disability,” says Frances in Saturday, “because to me, it’s a normal thing. I was deeply disappointed in Canada.” Saturday, which screened on opening night of the Available Light Film Festival, is now streaming from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Frances shares her story about moving her family to Canada from England (with a stab at Hong Kong in between) in order to provide the best opportunities for her daughter, Katherine. Saturday, by Katherine’s sister and Frances’s daughter, director Jessica Hall, observes a life of defying expectations as the family revisits Katherine’s unlikely childhood. As Jessica joins Katherine and Frances on their ritual Saturday get-togethers and the family tours Whitehorse bookstores, Frances opens up about what is was like to raise a child with an intellectual disability in the 1970s when institutions generally considered them lost causes.
Home movies play spliced together with elements of Katherine’s prized doll houses as Frances tells how she raised her daughter to thrive and be independent. Frances reflects upon affording her an engaged upbringing and teaching her things earlier than most kids in order to facilitate her intellectual development. By the time Frances got her family into Canada and the doctors told her to manage expectations because Katherine would never skate or ride a bicycle, her daughter was already doing both and proving herself far more capable than the doctors gave her credit for. This touching short doc offers a personal window into Canada’s all-too-recent neglect for disability rights, and provides a warm snapshot of the results that an optimistic outlook and a desire to lead with care can do for a child.
Watch Saturday below from the NFB.
Saturday, Jessica Hall, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
