What is it like not to understand the world you live in? What happens when the simplest daily tasks lead to anxiety, frustration and even violence? Make Me Normal is a film about another world: the autistic world. Autism is a condition of the mind that affects the way you communicate with the world around you. In Britain, over half a million people have autism. There is no cure.

In the film, four of the most able students at Spa School in London take us on a moving journey into their world, to show us what it is like to grow up with autism. Filmed over several months, with unique access to one of Britain’s largest state schools for children with autism, Make Me Normal follows these students as they learn to live with their condition.

Moneer (12-years old) has a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. When he loses his mother to cancer, the school’s struggle to help him deal with his feelings and to manage his violent behavior, is on a knife-edge. Roxanne (12) just wants to be a normal teenager but her realization that autism is for life is extremely painful. Roy (18) is desperately trying to make sense of the world during his last year at school, but what he really wants is a girlfriend. And Esther (18), our guide, has a special gift for explaining the autistic world.

The plea in the programme's title was uttered by Roxanne, whose desperation for friendship was perpetually frustrated by a failure to understand how friendship works. Bouts of swearing and hitting gave way to a kind of radiant sheepishness, as she grinned her apologies. The film was held together by Esther, whose narration articulated precisely her sense of difference, of being shut away from the normal world with its trees, estate agents, shops, job-centres.

Producer: Zac Beattie

Filmed and directed by: Jonathan Smith

contact: Sue Collins

Website: www.centuryfilmsltd.com