Short film ‘4 Feet: Blind Date’ portrays intimacy while wheelchair-bound

Virtual reality short film “4 Feet: Blind Date” transports its viewer into the world of Juana, an 18-year-old Argentinian girl who is wheelchair-bound and eager to explore her sexuality.

Juana (Delfina Diaz Gavier) goes on a blind date with Felipe (Cristóbal López Baen), who she met on social media and didn’t mention the wheelchair to.

The film is shot four feet off the ground, to place the viewer in the same height as Juana sits at in her wheelchair.

Juana rides the bus to meet Felipe for their blind date.

Rosario Perazolo Masjoan, a 21-year-old student and disability-rights activist was the lead writer for “4 Feet: Blind Date” and poured her own experience into the film. The actress who played Juana even used Masjoan’s motorized wheelchair decked out in stickers for the film.

“I think in society we have a certain view of people with disabilities, like they’re inspirations or angels or good persons or they’re suffering, and we want to show the good and the bad things,” Masjoan said.

The viewer joins Juana and Felipe in navigating the logistics of their first date.

In Felipe’s bedroom, they chat while he sits on the bed, until she asks to join him and he carries her to sit with him.

“I’m uncomfortable. Can you stretch my legs out?” Juana asks.

It takes some time for Juana and Felipe to get comfortable, but they fumble through the awkwardness of intimacy.

Felipe rests his head in Juana’s lap as they chat.

Getting through a blind date is already difficult enough, but when you’re bound to a wheelchair it adds another level of logistics to get through. Masjoan said she wants to show the real aspects and the humor of navigating things like dates.

“When I start to laugh about the things that I have to live and I don’t understand, that changes everything. It’s funny what we have to go through sometimes, and we want that in the character because we want to change the view of how people with disabilities are seen,” Masjoan said.

María Belén Poncio, the director of “4 Feet: Blind Date” said that Juana’s badass personality is one of the most important achievements of the film because her personality is showing an entirely different image of disability that isn’t normally seen.

“We wanted a character that you could love and hate and understand and know. We didn’t want to make a hero or a dream, just someone with a great personality. We said ‘OK, if Juana’s going to be be a badass, she has to be a real badass,’” Poncio said.

The Argentinian film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City Utah this year and was created with Adobe Premiere Pro.

This story is part of a series of content made in partnership with Adobe.