by Dov Kornits
A finalist in the 2025 Focus On Ability Short Film Festival with the beautiful Grace Tame short Where the World is Quiet, emerging filmmaker Ben Strum fills us in on this life-changing film.
“On the first day we ever met in person, Grace sat me down and looked me in the eye and said, ‘you’ve got autism’,” Ben tells us when we ask him about his own journey with this often-misunderstood condition. “She really encouraged me to go and get a diagnosis.
“It’s been a bit of a journey, but the ways of understanding myself and the tools that I’ve gotten from that diagnosis have actually been so constructive.
“It is such a challenge for autistic people to function, let alone thrive in society,” Ben tells us, also letting us know that he would miss 50% of schooling, despite over-achieving academically.
“I can attest to how much that diagnosis has helped me, both in terms of understanding myself, but also putting the parameters and boundaries in place that I need to stay regulated to function well. And also, to not apologise for being myself. I am very direct, and I think a lot of autistic people feel frustrated that they can’t just express what they think and feel that neurotypical people find so tactless or so unempathetic. We think it’s the most empathetic thing, to be honest, to say the truth. Being able to say that you’re autistic, I think it at least helps people understand that communication difference really coming from.”
Autistic or not, Ben Strum’s filmmaking abilities are undeniable, as his short film about former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, co-produced with Tame, attests.
“The film came up because Autism Spectrum Australia Aspect contacted me, they’d seen some work I did about the experience of COVID in the Jewish community, which won a NSW Premier’s multicultural communications award.”
Aspect, who funded most of the film through their philanthropy division, wanted to make a short video with Grace Tame, looking at the experience of autistic people in sport. “They wanted to tell a positive story about how autistic people can participate in all areas of life and the ways in which sport can really help them to manage and regulate their autism.”
Ben was actually already working with Tame – also an ultra runner – on a possible project that addresses her childhood trauma, which was put aside in preference of this far more positive story.
There are two versions of Where the World is Quiet, an eleven minute one that played at Sydney Film Festival among others, and a five minute version, which qualified the film for Focus On Ability.
Both versions dispel stereotypes about autism. “We wanted to make a film that looked predominantly at the differences in sensory processing that autistic people have,” Ben says. “There is a stereotype that autistic people are maybe introverted, maybe very direct, maybe disinterested in socialising. And that’s really not true. That is really just one profile of autism, particularly for those who are more on the hyposensitive end of the spectrum. Grace is like many autistic people, very sensitive, very attuned to others, deeply empathetic, and of course, as we know, very direct in that way, which I think makes autistic people a fantastic asset to this world where there are so many injustices and so many things which need to be called out or discussed. And she’s not afraid to speak truth to power, but this film was more about her as a human being, her experience of autism, her little private world, and those more vulnerable sides to Grace, including her humour that I think the mainstream media hasn’t always represented.”
The Focus On Ability Red Carpet Awards are on Sunday 16 November in Sydney. More details here.
Main photo by Patrick Moran
