By Kathleen Downes
When asked to name of a villain, most people probably think of a monster under the bed, a vampire, or a wicked witch tending to a bubbling cauldron. But for folks with disabilities, the villain is often much more realistic, lurking not in a comic book or a fairytale, but in moments of systemic discrimination that render them second-class citizens nearly 35 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It is this kind of more lifelike, and more sinister villain that writer, producer, and director Anna Pakman hopes to highlight in her latest short film, “Emergency Plan.”
Created as part of the 2025 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge (EDFC), “Emergency Plan” is the harrowing tale of disabled couple Jasmine (Margo Gignac, American Crime, The Rookie ) and Eddie (James Ian, Mariah Carey's Christmas Sketchtacular, The Allnighter), two wheelchair users left trapped alongside their young son Riley (Charlie Steinman, Merrily We Roll Along) in a Manhattan high-rise building following a devastating earthquake that has rocked the East Coast. With stern warnings to evacuate before the onset of deadly aftershocks broadcasted every few minutes on their small tabletop radio, and pleas for help unanswered, Jasmine and Eddie know time is running out.
In a nightmare scenario that feels too familiar to any disabled person treated like an afterthought in an emergency drill, the terrified parents come to the grim conclusion that their best chance to save 7-year-old Riley is to send him out on the city streets alone, knowing that they may perish before they can join him.
When presented with the 2025 Challenge theme “thriller and suspense,” Pakman admits she initially felt a bit out of her depth. With her past entries focused on comedy, she calls tackling such a decidedly un-funny topic “definitely intimidating” but ultimately aspires to use the opportunity to start a dialogue about disability and disaster planning, adding that disabled people are 2-4x more likely to face injury or death in mass disasters,and less likely to return home afterwards should they survive.
These sobering statistics are personal to Pakman, who was born with cerebral palsy, and who, like countless others in the disability community, recalls instances throughout her life when it felt like she would be abandoned in the event of an emergency. She notes that growing up she can remember fire drills “where no one seemed to have a clear plan for how I would safely get out.” When plans do exist, she continues, they are frequently forgotten and lack necessary updates as time passes.
Pakman own unsettling example is a former workplace which listed two colleagues as available to assist her in an emergency…more than a year after those colleagues had left the company.
Sadly, the baffling experience is more a norm than an anomaly.
When people with disabilities yet again faced disproportionate casualty rates in a natural disaster during January’s deadly Los Angeles wildfires, the passionate filmmaker decided a call for inclusive disaster planning felt more relevant—and more urgent—than ever.
The fires, coupled with the dismissal of disabled people’s lives amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, inform both her emotionally charged script and the post-film conversations that she hopes will continue long and far beyond the Film Challenge.
When asked about other experiences that drove her to make “Emergency Plan,” she remembers hearing “an actual CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] director say with her full chest that COVID was no longer an issue because only vulnerable people were getting very sick or dying, but guess what, that’s disabled people.”
That flippant attitude and those like it cost lives, says Pakman, and challenging the public “to think and act differently” begins with leaders and government officials modeling genuine concern for disabled citizens’ wellbeing. “Policymakers,” Pakman emphasizes, “need to include disabled voices at the table—not after plans are drafted, but at the very beginning” if catastrophes like the one featured in the film are to be avoided.
While Pakman is adamant that the “onus should never be on disabled people to fix systemic inequities,” she encourages them to think seriously about their own emergency plans before a crisis strikes, using resources like those offered by the The Partnership for Inclusive Strategies.
As in past years of EDFC participation, she is proud to showcase the talents of disabled creatives both in front of and behind the camera. Even the film’s radio broadcaster, who is never seen onscreen, is voiced by a disabled woman, 2019 Tony Award winner Ali Stroker (Oklahoma!), whom Pakman calls a “dear friend” and past collaborator on “The Glee Project.”
Hiring disabled performers for disabled roles, she believes, brings “nuance that no one else can fake,” while also promoting “authenticity, opportunity, and respect.”
Acknowledging the “financial considerations that producers have when casting a big star,” Pakman adds that authentically cast disabled roles can be paired “with a costar with marquis power,” a strategy that serves to “grow the résumé of the disabled actor” while also granting them some of the same name recognition already afforded to well-known non-disabled stars.
Calling recent years something of a “golden age” for disability representation in media, she cites the historic example of Marissa Bode (“Adult Nessarose”) and Cesily Colette Taylor (“Young Nessarose”) serving as the first authentic portrayal of protagonist Elphaba’s wheelchair using sister in the Oscar- nominated movie adaptation of Wicked.
Pakman is similarly delighted by the 2025 casting of wheelchair user Jenna Bainbridge in the stage version of the same role, given that a disabled actor has never before been hired for the part despite a Broadway run spanning more than two decades.
She hopes these leaps forward for disabled talent onscreen, onstage, and behind the scenes are just the beginning of a seismic shift in the narrative surrounding disability in the arts.
As for the next frontier?
“Mainstreaming us—everywhere,” Pakman enthuses. “Disabled characters in rom-coms, action flicks, political dramas—not just ‘issue’ stories. And importantly, hiring disabled people not just as actors, but as writers, directors, editors, showrunners, and network/studio executives.”
“Emergency Plan” is out now, available for streaming on YouTube and Facebook, along with the more than 100 other entries designed to advance the Film Challenge’s mission: “to tell unique stories that showcase disability in its many forms.”
Learn more about disability-inclusive disaster planning and the message behind “Emergency Plan” at http://www.emergencyplanfilm.com.
