An open letter from Stamily

To Barbara Bielińska, Director of European Film Festival ‘Integration You and Me’

SUBJECT: Immediate Rectification Required: The Wrongful Exclusion of a Short Film on Stuttering from

the European Film Festival ‘Integration You and Me’

20 June 2025

Dear Barbara Bielińska,

We write in support of director Irmo Stijnberg, whose short film ‘Unspoken Truth’ has been

disqualified from the European Film Festival ‘Integration You and Me’ in Poland on the grounds that stuttering is not a disability. His one sentence rejection simply stated: “The main theme of the festival is disability.” As Director of this festival, we believe you can right this wrong.

Stuttering is a recognised disability under WHO classifications and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which convention was ratified by Poland. Excluding this film misrepresents the law and reality, and actively contributes to the marginalisation and silencing of people with communication disabilities. It is a direct affront to the principles of disability inclusion that your festival, ostensibly dedicated to celebrating disability, purports to uphold. It denies the lived experience of the 80 million people across the world who stutter.

As people who stutter, we live in societies in which fluency is too often considered synonymous with competence, and those who stutter are ‘marked down’. We face levels of misunderstanding and ignorance that aren’t associated with other disabilities. Despite the fact that stuttering has a biological basis, it is still openly mocked in public and in popular culture. This results in people who stutter facing constant stigmatisation and lack of access to services others take for granted, including education, employment, and speech-assisted technology. To then be told that our artistic creations cannot be entered into certain competitions on the grounds that stuttering isn’t a disability is intolerable. Worse, repeated requests for clarification and information from Irmo Stijnberg over the past four months have been met with silence.

As a recipient of EU funding, your festival carries a great responsibility to align its practices with the robust disability inclusion frameworks of the European Union, which mirror and reinforce the UNCRPD. We note that your festival is co-organised by the Joachim Lelewel Public Library, which is co-funded by the European Union. We note also that the Socio-Cultural Society of Koszalin received public cultural funding for this year’s edition. A festival committed to disability should be a beacon of understanding, empathy, and authentic representation. We believe that excluding a film about stuttering conflicts with the EU’s values of inclusion, accessibility, and non-discrimination.

We, the undersigned, strongly urge you to reinstate Irmo Stijnberg’s film, ‘Unspoken Truth’, for the consideration of your judging panel.

Stamily	Cadence Speech Therapy	Paraguayan Stuttering Association
Stotterbond	Courtney Margulis, NYU	SPACE (Stuttering, People, Arts, Community, Education)
STUTTA	Stotterteam Tilburg	Fluir+ Abordaje Clínico de la Tartamudez
BeszÉLJ	Tartamudez Venezuela	Centro Especializado en Tartamudez
50 Million Voices	Stottercentrum Noord	Clinique spécialisée en bégaiement et bredouillement (Québec)
AImpower.org	superdope consulting	Dutch Stuttering Association Demosthenes
Proud Stutter	Airedale NHS Foundation Trust	Österreichische Selbsthilfe Initiative Stottern
withVR	Henderson Stuttering Therapy	Associazione Italiana Balbuzie e Comunicazione
De Stotterpraktijk	World Stuttering Network	Bundesvereinigung Stottern & Selbsthilfe e.V.
Stotterfonds	Irish Stammering Association	RISE Speech Therapy and Communication Center
STAMMA	NHS Stammering Network	Association bégaiement communication
	International Stuttering Association