PhD Len Collin

Len's research interests centre on how film can be used as a tool for social change. Utilising mainstream genres to tell stories of social injustice and in particular working in the field of Disability Advocacy.To this Len brings his extensive knowledge of industry practices as a performer, screenwriter, director and producer.

His 2016 feature film debut Sanctuary employed a cast of actors with disabilities to tell the story of Larry, a man with Down's Syndrome and Sophie, a woman with epilepsy and their forbiden love story. The film was workshopped and designed around the actors from Blue Teapot Theatre Company in Galway, based on the play of the same name which was written by Christian O'Reilly and Directed by Petal Pilley. Len worked with Christian on the film script and included workshop input from the actors - the result is a film that won critical acclaim from critics and audiences alike and has been screened around the world.

 

A chapter in the book Disability and Dissensus: Strategies of Disability Representation and Inclusion in Contemporary Culture. Edited by Katarzyna Ojrzynska and Maciej Wieczorek. called Shooting Actors who Have Intellectual Disabilities: A Reflexive Analysis on the making of the Feature Film Sanctuary was written by Collin and Published by Brill in September 2020.

 

A feature Documentary Altered Thinking: An acdemic Essay on Film (2020) took this analysis further by contextualising the industry approach to on screen representations of disability and the methodologies used by Collin in the making of Sanctuary and a call out to the industry to embrace authentic Casting and more authentic representations of disability.

Collin is currently in development on the film Iron Harvest, which explores themes around male sexuality from a queer perspective. Based on his original theatre play Box from 1992. The story has been updated and researched to provide a modern telling of the story of four men who dared to love another man. Set at the time of the first world war and in the present day.

 

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Ireland, Collin, L. 6 Apr 2023, Gemeinsam, Berlin, Peter Lang
• Altered Thinking: An Academic Essay, Collin, L. 10 Dec 2020
• Shooting Actors who Have Intellectual Disabilities: A Reflexive Analysis on the Making of the Feature Film Sanctuary, Collin, L. 23 Jun 2020, Disability and Dissensus:, Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers
• Sanctuary, Collin, L. Jul 2017

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Invited talk: Breaking Down Barriers 2020

Michael Lambert Sound into Colour: An Experimental Film Inquiry into Cross-modal Correspondence and Chromesthetic Perception Start Date: 01/03/2026

• Other Courses MA June 30 2013
• Fellow (FHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2015